Dissension
by IronSparrow99
Summary: What would you do if you had to choose between two people you love, on two sides of a war? It's an impossible choice, but it's one I - Taylor Stark - have to make. And soon. Whatever I do, one thing is clear - the Avengers will never be the same again.  *My version of Civil War*
1. Chapter 1

Even the best machines, the pinnacles of engineering perfection, can fall apart if they're missing a single screw.

One, miniscule little screw – that's all it takes. (Believe me. I know my engineering metaphors.) Without that one screw, that perfect machine is going to crash and burn spectacularly.

The Avengers were that machine.

And one battle – later dubbed the Last Straw – was that screw.

* * *

It was a cold, windy, December day, about six months after the fall of SHIELD, and flying robot ants were taking over the Upper East Side.

" _Beta?"_

"Yeah?" I reply breathlessly as I pull out of one evasive loop, only to be forced into another by another buzzing cloud of ants coming towards me.

" _There's an overturned SUV about a block from your position."_ Hawkeye reports. _"Cap's evacuating, he needs cover."_

"On my way." I click off main comms and onto Jarvis. "J, lock Cap's position."

" _Affirmative, ma'am. He is approximately 300 meters directly southwest of your position."_

I nod and, with a final blast at a nearby swarm, head in the direction I'm told. I hover over the twisted heap of metal as Steve continues to pull out a child – a little boy that looks like he's suffering a head injury.

" _This one's gonna need medical attention."_ Steve reports.

"Where are his parents?"

" _They were…still in the car."_

I glance at the twisted (now burning) wreck and sigh, my warm breath puffing in clouds inside my helmet. "Okay."

He stays silent, and I can't see his expression for his cowl.

I take off again, rolling to the side as I fire some mini missiles off my right shoulder, grinning as they rip apart a bigger swarm ahead. "Hehehe, I love my bombs."

" _Sometimes I worry about you, gear girl."_ Clint teases.

"And I you, bird boy," I fire back. "Don't worry your pretty little head over my questionable sanity."

" _Aw, you think I'm pretty?"_ he asks with mock bashfulness. _"I'm flattered!"_

" _Hawkeye! Iron Beta! No chatter on the comms, please!"_ Steve interrupts sternly.

"Sorry, Cap." we chorus, but I turn slightly and slow down a bit as I fly over Hawkeye's position, giving him a thumbs and executing a fancy little flip.

" _Beta…"_

"Fine. Sorry, O Great and Powerful Leader." I snicker. "Captain, sir."

I can almost see Steve's stern glare, even from my position hundreds of feet in the air; and, if the suppressed laughter sounding over the comms is any indication, so can Iron Man.

I refocus on the task at hand as I dodge another swarm, chasing after them with repulsor fire. "Thor, headed your way!"

I swerve just in time as they suddenly get hit by a stream of lighting and combust, cracking with electricity that would have seriously messed up my suit. "Thanks for the warning, Shakespeare."

" _Alright, that should be that last of them,"_ Steve pants. _"Meet by the jet for a headcount."_

I pause as Jarvis displays some numbers confirming Steve's words before heading in the general direction of the jet.

I amuse myself with a few fancy flips and tricks before I touch down on the streets of New York, reaching up to remove my helmet but not getting out of the suit yet, walking with clunking footsteps to stand by my dad.

Dad, who was using one hand to hold his helmet against his side, grins and throws an arm around my shoulders with a metal-on-metal clank. Despite the awkward feel of his bulky metal arm on my larger-than-usual shoulders, all I do is roll my eyes and shift my eight from foot to foot.

Steve appears from around the corner and I can see his eyes flicking over all of us in a silent head count before he nods, satisfied. "Good job out there guys. Now, I need to contact the med team about something, _stay here_. I mean it."

We all nod, and he disappears into the jet, trusting us all to act like adults – because even I, at nineteen, was legally an adult.

I had every intention of following that order, I swear I did.

But then someone screamed.

It was a high, feminine scream, and the only ones possible of making that noise were Natasha and I. It's wasn't her, so that meant…

A civilian was in trouble.

I grab my helmet and shove it back on, my dad doing the same.

"Guys, Cap said to stay here!" Natasha protests.

I finish with my helmet and flip up my faceplate. "Nat, someone's in trouble out there. Someone young, by the sounds of it. Are you really going to do nothing because _Cap said so_?"

She hesitates. "Taylor, I have to-"

"And so do I." I flip my faceplate back down and face whom I consider my _direct_ superior and commander. "Shall we?"

Iron Man nods. "Let's."

I step forward, but I'm stopped by a hand on my wrist. "Taylor."

I flip my faceplate up again and turn to look at Clint, whose sunglasses are pushed up onto his head and his eyes ae giving me his best puppy-dog pleading look. Any other day, that gaze would work. But today…

"Sorry, Hawkeye." I yank my wrist out of his grasp. "But there's an innocent in trouble and this is my job."

I slam my faceplate down again and take off, following Iron Man into the sky and blocking off comms to two people: him and Jarvis. "What are we looking for?"

" _I'm not sure,"_ he admits, his face popping up in the corner of my holoscreen. _"It sounded young, but if we search only for kids then we could be looking in the completely wrong direction."_

"Right." I nod, keeping my eyes on the street below me. "But there's two of us. What if you search for one thing while I search for another?"

" _Good idea. Jarvis, do two searches. One on me for both males and females under 18-"_

"-and one for me for everyone ages 19 to…40."

" _That's a big range."_ my dad observes. _"It'll turn into a needle-haystack situation."_

"Not if I filter out those not in distress," I reason. "Jarvis' searches include heart rate and blood pressure. He'll flag anyone who seems like they aren't okay."

He nods, and I curve off slightly and begin the search. "Shout if you find anything."

" _Will do, Beta."_

I begin a wide, curving pattern to cover as much ground as possible, mentally reflecting on how Cap was going to have my head for this.

 _He might understand,_ a positive little voice remarks. _You're just helping someone in trouble._

 _Yeah, this might be the pessimist in me speaking, but I doubt that._

I adjust my course slightly, keeping my eyes glued to the ground as I try to focus solely on the task at hand: finding the person that was in pain.

" _I found something!"_ my dad calls. _"I need some help over here!"_

I quickly turn and head towards the little dot marking his position, about two blocks from where I was.

As soon as I arrive I can already tell it's going to be really bad; I'm staring at one of those massive Hummers and my dad is hovering just in front of it's left rear wheel.

"What do we have?" I ask as I come to hover behind the Iron Man suit, already studying the vehicle for weaknesses.

" _A five year old girl."_ he reports. _"Currently unconscious and her leg is stuck in the chassis of this monster."_

"If I'm being honest here, this looks like more than a two-person job," I admit as I back up a bit so that I can see the whole truck.

" _Yeah, well, two people is all we have,"_ he retorts. _"Because apparently we're the only two with minds of our own. Make it work."_

"Do we know where in the chassis the girl is?" I ask, a plan beginning in my head.

" _Just behind the left rear wheel."_ my dad offers. _"I can't get her out from the left side though."_

"So you're saying we would need the truck…" I trail off as I move around the vehicle so that I'm looking at the right side. "J, look up specs for a 2008 Hummer H2."

Jarvis returns his findings a moment later. _"Ma'am, the 2008 Hummer H2 model weighs 6,614 pounds, is 81.3 inches wide, and 79 inches tall. The engine-"_

"Mute." I grimace. I needed to find a way to tip a car that was just under seven feet wide, six and a half feet tall, and weighed just over three and a half tons.

I resort to circling the truck slowly, calculations running through my head and occasionally being projected onto the holoscreen.

" _What's up?"_ my dad asks after about five minutes of this.

"You would need 200 Newton's of force on a single spot in order to tip this beast," I explain as I land on the top of the truck. "The object that hits it would need to be traveling at about 100 miles per hour. I can do that, but-"

" _But you won't."_ he tells me sternly.

"But I'm faster than you are!" I protest.

" _And I am heavier than you are,"_ he points out.

"But-"

" _Taylor, I'm not letting you purposefully ram yourself into a car. End of discussion. Get into position to get the girl out."_

I want to protest, but my dad gives me a stern look on the corner of my screen, so instead I hop off the truck and position myself by the left rear wheel.

" _I'm going to give you a countdown from three,"_ my dad explains as he backs away from the truck in order to gather momentum. _"When I get to one, you need to grab the kid and get her out ASAP, because this thing will be coming down with a little over 43,300 pounds per foot of force. You'll have under a second to move."_

"So...this is safer than what you're doing?"

" _No,"_ he admits hesitantly. _"It's not optimal, but you're better suited for this job than the one I'm doing."_

"If you say so," I grumble dubiously as I redirect all power to the thrusters and hit the throttle, putting the metaphoric pedal to the metal. "Here goes nothing."

" _In position."_ I hear the sound of thrusters roaring, getting closer with every passing second. _"I'm at 100. Impact in three, two, one!"_

There's sickening crunch above me, and then my world dissolves into a blur of motion - I grab the battered little body stuck in the underbelly of the truck as soon as I can, popping back out a millisecond before the now overturned truck hits the ground with a mighty boom.

And then it's all quiet, save for my raspy gasping as Jarvis flips my faceplate up and my too-fast heartbeat roaring in my ears.

There's a soft thud as my dad lands behind me. "Never doing that again."

I crane my head around to look, and I can't help my soft gasp.

There's a zone of damage on the right side of the suit that extends as far down as his right elbow and over to his sternum. Everything in this circle of carnage is crushed beyond recognition; instead of a highly-sophisticated, million dollar modern suit of armor, it looks like red tin foil better suited for some kid's Halloween costume.

"Oh my - are you okay?!"

"Fine, fine," he waves me off. "How's the kid?"

I shift my eyes to the bruised bundle in my arms. "Not responding. I'm not a doctor."

He peers at the kid curiously. "Any ID?"

"I'm not going to search a kid for ID!" I tell him incredulously. "Especially not an unconscious one! And she's five!"

He rolls his eyes at me. "Not what I meant. Does she have any of those ID bracelets, anything?"

I gently shift the bundle in my arms. "Nope. But she's bleeding, so I'm going to find the nearest medical personnel. Meet you at home?"

He nods and flips his faceplate down before taking off.

I, too, close my faceplate, although I take off a bit more gently and employ Jarvis to help me pilot the suit because the flight stabilizers on my hands are occupied.

It takes about five minutes for me to find the nearest nurse, and I land briefly to hand off the girl before I take off again, this time setting course for the tower.

It was time to face the music.

* * *

"-and do you have _any idea_ of the consequences of your actions today?!"

I frown as I follow Bruce into the communal floor, immediately feeling the tension blanketing the room.

Everyone's body language screams conflict: Clint and Natasha are obviously siding with Steve, both in the kitchen behind him, with Steve himself standing where the kitchen tile met the hardwood of the living room and shouting at my dad, who was standing in the middle of the living room, a tumbler within easy reach.

Steve and my dad fighting wasn't a surprising incident - over the past five-ish years, they had, of course, gotten used to each other's ways; however, the matter still stood that they had completely different views about almost everything.

"Yes, I do!" My dad's retort brings me back to the situation at hand. "The consequences of my actions are that a five year old girl lived when she would have died otherwise!"

"You almost killed yourself!" Steve argues. "Heck, you almost killed your daughter! Does that mean anything to you?"

I wince as I'm dragged into the argument, watching my dad rear back as if he had been hit. "You honestly think it doesn't? Do you honestly think that the life of the one person I trust unconditionally-"

"One person? Tony, we're your team, you need to trust us-"

"Trust you?" my dad asks incredulously, "How can I trust a bunch of people that would rather follow orders then go save a child in pain? What kind of heroes are you?"

Steve chooses to ignore that last barb. "Tony, this team cannot function with breaches of trust and orders!"

"You're not being obvious at all, Spangles. Why don't you say what's really on your mind, hm? Come on, say it!" my dad eggs.

I watch as Steve's nostrils flare. "You're acting childish!"

"Say it!" my dad insists.

"Fine!" Steve finally explodes. "You, Tony Stark, are the most childish, reckless, arrogant, stuck up, snobby, son of a gun I have ever had the displ-"

I watch something on my dad's face change. "Say no more, Rogers. I quit."

"-to - what?" Steve blinks.

"I quit." my dad shrugs nonchalantly. "I mean, we knew this would never work, right, guys? After all..." his eyes find Natasha and lock on. "Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark, _not recommended_."

Steve's face adopts a rock hard mask of emotionlessness. "So be it, Mr. Stark. Your status will be changed by the end of the day."

"Wait." I cut in, speaking for the first time. "Me too." I go over to stand next to my dad. "I want no part in a group that has lost Iron Man."

"Very well." Steve nods coldly. "Anyone else?"

"Anyone with any sense of what is right speak now, or forever hold your peace." my dad adds.

Everything is silent for a long moment.

And then Bruce moves, coming across the room to stand by the two of us. "Sorry, Captain," he says with rare cheek, "but I don't think Hulk would like a team without 'Tin Man' or 'Little Bird'."

I roll my eyes at the nickname but give Bruce a small smile.

"Anybody else?"

Nobody else moves, and my heart twists at the fact that Clint is still behind Steve, and therefore on the opposite side of whatever is to come.

"Well then." my dad stiffens his back. "I suppose we'll be leaving then."

I start towards my room, pausing by Bruce. "You remember that 'grab-and-go' duffel we told you to unpack?"

He nods. "Yeah."

"Did you, by chance, not listen to us and keep it packed?" I ask quietly, both of us fully certain that he still had it fully packed somewhere.

He grins at me. "Of course I did."

I nod at him and hurry off to my own room, grabbing a duffel and packing a few days' worth of clothes, a few knives, a few guns, and a small pouch of gun magazines. I also clip my collapsed bow to my belt and grab the backpack containing my quiver and arrows.

My dad appears in the doorway just as I'm slipping on my coat. "Hey. Since Bruce can't fly, we're taking the four-door Porsche."

"I have to leave my car?" I whine. "Really?"

"Sorry, kiddo." my dad gives me an apologetic grin. "I'll Jarvis move it to the lab, okay?"

I huff but nod anyways, grabbing my bags and heading to the door and giving my room one last glance for an indefinite amount of time before hitting the lights and heading for the stairs,

Once I'm there, I find Bruce waiting by the light blue-silver Porsche. I load my bags into the backseat and slip in next to them, putting my bow by my feet.

My dad comes down not a minute later, carrying his own duffle bag and suitcase-Mark V and the similar Beta III, which both get put in the trunk before he takes the driver's seat and Bruce takes shotgun.

We pull out of the garage almost silently, and I stare out the window at the tower - Avengers Tower - as we leave.

We were leaving home, our (former) team, my boyfriend, and everything we knew.

And I didn't know when - or even if - we'd ever be back.


	2. Chapter 2

About three hours later, I'm awoken by the car stopping. "W're are we?"

"Providence, Rhode Island." a familiar voice announces. "And where we are going to be spending the next…yeah."

I rub a hand against my face and blink a few times, my eyes adjusting to find the car parked in a garage about half the size of the one at home, with Beta III resting just outside the car within arm's reach and Bruce and my dad standing a few feet away with their bags.

I quickly grab all my bags and my suit, following the two men up a flight of stairs and into a living room-type area.

"Make yourselves at home," my dad commands, dropping his bags on an armchair and proceeding to take out his phone and mess with something.

I shrug and deposit my bags on the small coffee table and kick off my sneakers before sprawling out on a couch, Bruce dropping into a loveseat.

My dad then gathers our attention by clearing his throat. "First off, yes, that _did_ just happen. We three are no longer part of the Avengers. Old Man Capsicle really did give us the boot, because apparently, as leader, he can do that. Questions?"

"Pick me! Pick me!" I bounce in my seat until my dad looks at me. "Where are we?"

Dad doesn't skip a beat as he pulls up a holographic set of 3D blueprints. "Meet Stark Compound #394."

The compound is shaped like a U, but with straight lines; a big iron gate at the front, and a courtyard in the middle that was surrounded by the three sides of the building. The building itself had three floors, two of which were above ground.

"We're on the ground floor right now," my dad explains. "This is where the living room and kitchen are, obviously, but also all of the bedrooms are - there are six in total. Below us are the parking garage and all of the labs, which double as bunkers. Above us are all the 'War Rooms', if you will; the debriefing rooms, etcetera. Simple enough."

Bruce raises his hand, significantly calmer than I had. "What are we doing?"

It isn't often Tony Stark is speechless, but two of the best people to do that _were_ standing in the room, the only other being Rhodey.

"Um…" he tilts his head curiously, like a dog might. "Good question. Well…we're being rich, not following orders, and making Spangles pull his head out of-"

I clear my throat loudly. "Technically, we've gone rouge." I point out. "I mean, at least last time, it was all of us working towards a common goal. But this time, it's the three of us against Captain America, the only super soldier and a dude I have seen lift a small _car_ , Black Widow, one of the most successful spies in the history of _ever_ , and-" I break off and swallow thickly before I can mention the third ex-team member we left behind.

Bruce gives me a soft look and nods. "Yeah, him too. We're grasping at straws here, Tony."

My dad sighs. "What we need to do here is-"

He's cut off by my phone chirping and buzzing in my pocket. I sigh and fish it out, frowning at the screen.

"What is it?" Dad asks, suddenly alert.

I hiss out a breath and send the information to the hologram, shoving the building diagram to the side.

We're staring at a list of screaming headlines, all of which have triggered important keywords:

" _IMPORTANT: THE END OF THE AVENGERS?"_

" _Iron Man: Villain or Vigilante?"_

" _Captain America speaks out against Stark Industries…"_

" _A Second Civil War Approaching?"_

" _Interview with the Falcon: Life as an Avenger…"_

" _Winter Soldier: Good Guy or still frozen?"_

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. "Damn…Черт, Черт возьми, Черт возьми…"

"They're recruiting," Bruce notices, pointing at the last two headlines.

"No," I correct wearily, "they're _replacing_."

"Well if they get to invite new guests…" I look to see a wicked, slightly insane gleam forming in my dad's eyes, "Who says we can't do the same?"

I stare at him for a second before taking a deep breath. "Who would we call?"

"Rhodey, first off." he says as if it were obvious. "Then…I don't suppose you have any assassin connections?" he asks hopefully.

"I'm not an assassin," I scoff. "They scare me. The one with all the connections was Cl – H-Hawkeye." I duck my head for a moment before regaining my composure. "In short, no. All I know are smart people."

"That's it!" my dad exclaims. "Smart people! If we can't beat them in muscle, we can out smart them! Brains over brawn, people!"

"Jane," I realize, grabbing onto his train of thought.

"And Betty." Bruce adds. "What?" he defends at our odd looks. "If we want to continue the 'brains over brawn' theory, then we need to complete the Dream Team; ergo, Betty."

"And this has _nothing_ to do with the fact that she's your girlfriend?" I tease. He just shrugs.

"Okay then." My dad claps his hands. "We have some calls to make. I'm calling Rhodey, Taylor you take Jane, Bruce call your missus."

I roll my eyes but grab my weapons bag and amble away to make that call anyways, heading towards one of the guest rooms as I dial a familiar number.

" _Hello?"_

"Jane," I greet. "Long time no talk."

" _Yeah, I guess. What's up?"_

I sigh as I reach one of the rooms and shove the door open. "Always down to business with you, huh, Foster? Alright, I'll bite. Have you seen the news lately?"

" _Yes. The Avengers are having some major issues."_

"You could say that," I joke humorlessly as I sit on the bed in what was now my room. "You could definitely say that."

" _And let me guess: you want me to join your side."_

"Well, you put it quite bluntly, but essentially." I nod.

" _Taylor…"_ she sighs. _"I'm not an Avenger, no matter how much you try and militarize me. Can't I stay out of this?"_

"I'm not asking you to _be_ and Avenger, Jane." I reason. "I'm just asking you to do what's right!"

" _How do_ _ **I**_ _know that's right?"_ she argues. _"Plus, that's not what Thor would have wanted – and I can't lose him, Taylor, I can't! My life is so ordinary and then this Norse God comes and crash lands and suddenly I'm in love and I'm dating a superhero, and I cannot lose that. I…just can't. I'm sorry."_

And then there's a click as the line goes dead.

I groan and flop back onto the bed. "Well there goes that."

And then my phone vibrates again, this time with a text: _Rhodey's being a stubborn butthole, call him._

I grin and shake my head exasperatedly as I dial another phone number.

" _I've been expecting this."_

"Hello to you too." I sass. "Someone's cranky."

" _Your dad sic'd you on me, didn't he?"_ Rhodey sighs. _"Taylor, I can't help you – I want to, believe me! I really think you did the right thing…for you, anyways. But what you're doing is breaking so many laws. I've worked too hard to get this uniform, Taylor, longer than you've even been alive. I can't lose it all just to help a friend."_

"Going by what I'm told, you were Tony Stark's friend before you were an airman, Rhodey. But anyways – you're saying you would rather be on the wrong side than possibly lose your uniform? That's only a possibility, Rhodey, and even if it _did_ happen, my dad would hire you faster than you could say 'unemployed'. He's been looking for a chance for decades."

" _Taylor…"_ he warns, using the tone of voice that says _you will listen to me because I am an adult and therefore inherently right._

I _hated_ that tone.

"You want to play that game, _Lieutenant Colonel_ Rhodes?" I hiss dangerously, both of us knowing me using his full title means I'm pissed at him. "Fine, let's. The United States Air Force motto includes three things: 1) Aim High. 2) Fight. 3) Win. Does it mention which side you must be on? No."

"And don't even _start_ with loss." I continue. "I had to leave Hawkeye, Rhodey. I had to leave _C-Clint_ …" I swallow around a new lump in my throat.

" _This means that much to you, huh?"_ my godfather asks softly. _"And have I mentioned I hate it when you use my own logic against me? You're right. Send me your coordinates, War Machine will be there ASAP."_

I grin. "You're the best. Bye." I hang up the phone and get Jarvis to send the compound's coordinates over a secure line and head back out into the living room to rejoin Dad and Bruce. "What's our status?"

My dad sighs. "Rhodey's stubborn. Did you get any farther with him?"

"War Machine's on his way." I grin, then sober. "But Jane's not coming, she can't afford to lose Thor."

Bruce sighs. "Betty's not coming either. She feels horrible, but she's currently doing some research on a tiny island in Central America and I just told her to stay there, she'll be safe." He fiddles with his glasses. "But she sends her best and her support and wishes us all luck."

"So while we wait for Rhodey to get here, I'll be in a lab downstairs." I share a glance with both of them. "Something tells me I'm going to need to rush production of version 2 of Beta IV."

* * *

About an hour and a half later, Jarvis gets a blip on the air traffic monitoring systems we apparently had.

"Rhodey's here," my dad almost squeals as there's a muted thump above our heads. "Taylor-"

"I'm going to be a one-woman welcoming committee." I head for the elevator, punching the button for the top floor.

My godfather is standing there, a bit of a wild gleam in his eyes and the massive form of the War Machine armor lying at his feet.

"There's the world's best godfather." I greet him warmly and give him a hug.

"Well, that's what my latest birthday mug says," he fires back, squeezing me gently before letting go.

I help him disassemble his armor, packing it all into a bow and making a note to have it delivered to whatever room he chose later.

I lead him back to the elevator to return to the ground floor, but just before the elevator doors open again my phone buzzes again. I groan and look at it again, expecting it to be another news alert or something.

Not _…this._

 **Darcy:** _your front gate just electrocuted me._

"What the-" I blink at my screen a few times and then look up at Rhodey, who was watching me curiously. "You trust me, right?"

"Yes…what crazy thing are you going to do _now_?"

I grin. "You know me too well. I need your gun."

He wordlessly hands over his Beretta M9, which I slip into the waistband of my pants. "Thanks. I need to go check on something."

As soon as the elevator doors open I take off towards the front of the building, emerging onto the courtyard and watch the front gates from a distance.

Sure enough, I can just make out the form of the brown haired intern. "Jarvis," I sigh. "Stand down and let her in."

I stay tense, however, as the gates swing open and she jogs towards me. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?" I ask her tersely, narrowing my eyes. "Come to think of it, _how the hell did you even find us?"_

She stops about a foot away from me and rears back slightly. "Whoa there, someone's tense. I came to help, and I found your number in Jane's call logs."

"You're sure?"

"About wanting to help, or about the call logs?"

"Darcy…" I sigh.

"Yes, I am sure I want to help." she announces. "I'm going to stand by what I think is right."

I nod and finally relax, shepherding her into the building.

"Thanks." I grin at her as we make our way down one of the hallways.

"I figured you might need me here," she explains simply.

"Yeah, we could sure use the help," I admit. "And god knows I'm going to need someone to talk about my screwed up love life with."

"Screwed up…?"

"I left." I give a small shrug. "Cl – Hawkeye, I mean, stayed."

She stares at me for a moment before declaring, "You're right, that sucks." before we emerge into the living room, where Rhodey's already made himself comfortable.

I take a look around the room as Darcy introduces herself to him.

So far, on our little team of ragtag "runaways", we had a 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist', the Hulk, a Lieutenant Colonel that was technically defecting in order to be here, and a slightly-crazy-Taser-wielding-intern.

And me.

I'll admit, we weren't much, nor were we the prettiest of groups.

But we were all that we could get, and we'd make due.

Or else.

* * *

 **Thanks a million to Yami the Outcast, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, and Finnish Toast for reviewing the last chapter, you made my day!**

 **Also, any Harry Potter fans that get the symbolism behind Compound #394 are amazing.**

 **Please keep reviewing! You're all awesome!**


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, after we had all slept as best we could under the circumstances and a surprisingly normal breakfast, we all converged in conference room number 2 for our first official debriefing.

The conference room had one wall that was all floor-to-ceiling bulletproof windows and held a table much like the one of the bridge of the Hellicarrier, but with more technology. Each of us were using it differently: Rhodey had an eye on the air traffic above us, Bruce was going through the New Avengers – that's what we were calling Cap, Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier – discussed battle plans, I was keeping an eye on news and social media feeds, and I'm pretty sure Darcy was browsing iTunes.

"Alright! So here's the deal." Dad starts from the head of the table, and we all pause to look at him. "First order of business: housekeeping. I don't like it either, but if we want more than a fool's chance at _not getting caught_ , we need to know what we're doing. Questions?"

There are none, so he continues.

"The five of us are, herby and henceforth, the Iron Legion. Any complaints about the name can be brought up _after_ the meeting. Chain of command goes like this: I am your leader-"

A general consensus of "we're all _doomed_ " is shared around the table, but he just rolls his eyes and ignores us. "Iron Beta is my second in command."

I nearly fall out of my chair. "Wait, what?" I sputter. "What – why _me_?"

My dad pretends to think about that. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because you've been my not-really-sidekick for the past six years? Maybe because you're the only one that unconditionally trusts me yet is not afraid to stand up to me when I deserve it? Maybe-"

"Stop it, you're too kind," I drawl. "Fine. But I'll be bringing this up after the meeting."

He nods and accepts that. "I also need you to keep an eye on what the exes are saying about us."

"But-" I gasp. "Dad, I left h-"

"We have someone else watching the bird," he assures me. "I meant the rest of them. Keep an eye on everything they do and say."

I nod as he moves on to Bruce. "You're my head of research, essentially. I need you to work with Beta and find out as much as you can about where they're going to be, what weapons they use who they bring in, etc. Yeah?"

"Yeah." Bruce nods.

Then Dad moves to Rhodey. "You keep an eye of the government, mainly because none of the rest of us have that kind of tolerance. I need to know what charges they have against us, how many they're sending after us, how close they're getting…things like that. You can do that, right?"

Rhodey just nods.

Dad faces Darcy, who is watching him with an expression that's part fear, part anxiety, and part curiosity.

"You're our handler," he explains. "You won't be on the front lines, mainly because so many people would want my head if you got hurt out there," he glances at me and I smirk unashamedly, "but we need someone with a view of the big picture telling us where we're needed."

Everyone's quiet as we wait for her to say something.

"You want your lives in my hands?" she asks quietly.

"You're not Coulson," I tell her bluntly. "And you might never be. But…you're pretty close."

"And there's no higher praise than that," Bruce adds. "And you've already got the Taser."

She rolls her eyes at us but nods. "Okay."

And, with that, my dad continues with the meeting.

It's all wrapped up with a nice little bow not ten minutes later, and Dad dismisses everyone, letting them scurry off to do their new tasks.

I, however, stay, turning to look out one of the windows at the Rhode Island countryside, a light dusting of snow coating the ground. "You make a good leader." I remark quietly.

My dad mirrors my tone. "Thank you."

"Why?" I demand, suddenly spinning my chair around to face him. "Why?"

"Why I chose you?" he raises an eyebrow. "I already told you, kiddo. Why don't you give me _why not_?"

"I can't follow orders," I start, holding up a hand and ticking off fingers. "I'm an emotional hot mess right now, and I have no idea how to lead right now, should you go down."

"Okay," he nods. "Here's what I have to say to that: yes, you _can_ follow orders – if you agree with them. You usually agree with mine, and if you don't, you tell me. I don't need a 'yes' man or woman."

"But when we're out there," I gesture at the outdoors, "there's no time for debate."

"That there is not." he agrees. "But keep in mind that I'm biased – if a building was on fire and you were trapped in there with a little kid, I would tell you to ditch the kid and get the hell out because I am _far_ more worried about my only child's safety versus some stranger's kid. You, however, would rescue the kid because you put their health above your own."

"And that's what I need you to do." he finishes. "I need you to see through my bias and do what is really right, even if it means defying my admittedly extremely biased orders. Get it?"

I nod before I start sniggering.

"What?"

"I'm not going to call you 'sir'. Or enter any burning buildings anytime soon."

He rolls his eyes and ruffles my hair. "I wouldn't dream of it, kiddo."

I nod and stand. "If that's all, I'll be in a lab."

He nods and I leave the conference room, heading for an elevator and pressing the button for the basement level.

Once there, I approach one of the five labs, keying in my access code. The doors hiss open and I walk in, cueing up several projects at once: a diagram of the new chain of command for the Avengers, a few minor projects, and a full-size model of Beta IV as it was before the fall of SHIELD in the summer.

I put that on standby, first pulling up profiles for Captain America, Black Widow (who was apparently his new right hand), Falcon, and the Winter Soldier. I don't touch Hawkeye's files.

I can't. Not yet.

"Jarvis, are the threat levels updated?" I ask.

" _They are, ma'am. These four and Mr. Barton are all listed as Threat Level Alpha One. Prince Odinson is not, however."_

"Where _is_ Thor?" I wonder aloud. "Jane made it sound like he was on their side."

" _No otherworldly signatures are being picked up anywhere on this planet, Miss Stark."_

"Then he's off planet at the moment," I confirm. "Leave his threat level as is. Warn me immediately if his signature is picked up."

" _Of course, ma'am."_

I dismiss the profiles, moving the suit diagram to the center and giving it my full attention.

Seeing the matte black metal again threw me back a few months, to the last time I was on the run – when SHIELD was discovered to be corrupt and dangerous.

That time, everyone was together.

Cap, Dad, me, Bruce, Nat, Thor, Clint-

No.

Now he was Hawkeye, just Hawkeye. He was my enemy now.

It needed to be that way.

Because he was no longer (he _couldn't_ be) Clint Barton, the guy that, less than a month ago, had tried to get me a duckling as a present.

He couldn't be the guy that, just yesterday morning, had been teasing me over the comms.

For the unforeseeable future he was Hawkeye: master assassin that never misses. Just like Natasha, formerly a surrogate aunt, was now just Black Widow, Red Room trained spy and all of the others that were once my friends were now just enemies.

Was that cold? Yes. But I needed that cold indifference to do my new job.

I was trusted to be second in command of the Iron Legion.

And I trusted my father's judgement.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts, refocusing on the diagram and getting to work pulling it apart.

A soft knock sounds behind me. "Hey."

I turn around to see Darcy standing just outside, and I remotely key in my code to let her in. "Hi. Remind me to give you your own code…in fact – Jarvis, key in Darcy Lewis, entry code 2-0-1-1-9-5-1-8."

There's a slight pause before Jarvis replies, _"Finished, ma'am."_

I turn back to Darcy. "Ta-da! You have your own code now!"

She nods and plops down in another chair. "Whatcha working on?"

"Rebuilding Beta IV," I reply, waving a hand at the diagram. "But since you're here, want to help monitor social media feeds?"

She nods and I grab a tablet and hack into Facebook before handing it to her, doing the same with Twitter for myself.

Over the next hour, we sort through hundreds of comments and feeds, picking out who supported us and who didn't.

Scarily enough, the lists were almost the same size.

We also caught up what had happened in the six months since we had seen each other last, Darcy recounting some wild tale about her latest college escapade and successfully pulling my mind off the current situation, at least temporarily.

Temporarily.

Not much was permanent, as I had found out over the past 24 hours.

* * *

 **Thanks to candycrum, Finnish toast, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, Csilla (Guest), and HollyJollyRussianAssassin (who is awesome) for reviewing the last chapter! You rock!**

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	4. Chapter 4

" _Taylor? Taylor. Taylor? Tayyylor. Taaaylor. Tayloo-"_

" _Shut up." I grin fondly at my boyfriend – who was currently drugged to the gills on morphine after he decided it would be a good idea to jump off a building sans grappling hook._

 _It was hard to stay mad at a guy that was cute and currently testing all the ways your name could feel on his tongue._

" _Sorry," he apologizes, big grey eyes forming into puppy eyes that even the strongest of wills would be hard to resist._

 _I shake my head and move to place a kiss on his forehead. "You're drugged, hawk. I'm going to show you everything later anyways."_

 _He just gives me a boyish grin and proceeds to play with my hair as I set my chin on the hospital bed next to him._

" _Hey Taylor?" he whispers conspiratorially._

 _I glance over at him. "Yeah?"_

"… _you're my girlfriend, right?"_

" _Mmhmm," I hum, reassuring him of that fact for the third time in the past hour._

" _Oh. How?"_

 _I laugh and shake my head. "You'll remember soon enough."_

" _Oh, okay. Well, whatever I did, I'm glad."_

" _And why is that?" I question, glancing over at him._

"' _Cause," he sighs sleepily. "You're amazing…"_

 _And, with that, he falls asleep. I laugh and lean over to straighten his blankets. "You're pretty amazing too. I love you, hawk."_

 _I love you._

 _I love you._

 _I love you…_

I wake up with a choked scream, a beeping sound ringing in my head.

I glance around to find my phone buzzing on the nightstand with a text:

 _Beta, need you in the war room ASAP. Big news._

I blink at my phone a few times before the words sink in and I jump off my bed like it burned me, rushing around in a whirlwind to get dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

I take off for the second floor, opting to take the stairs. I burst into conference room two – the War Room – about five minutes later. "I'm here."

"Good." My dad points to the seat directly to his right. "Sit. You need to see this."

I obediently sit, positioning myself so I can see the big TV monitor we were all staring at. Once I'm situated, Dad taps something on his tablet and a video plays.

The screen comes to life to show a gigantic mass of people, all holding signs that say things like _No Revolt!_ and _Traitors Must Die!_

The crowd is roaring furiously, screaming and hollering at a level that would have been deafening had we been listening to it at full volume.

And, standing at the center of the throng is none other than Captain America himself.

" _I am deeply disappointed and saddened by the betrayal of Iron Man, Iron Beta, and Dr. Banner,"_ he starts. _"As heroes, it should always be in our best interests to put you – the public – above all else, and the three people that deserted us some days ago revealed that that was not the case, for they only saw themselves. They are no longer working to protect the greater good, and, therefore, are a threat to public safety. The New Avengers and I are working as hard as we can to neutralize these threats, and-"_

"Turn it off," I command quietly, clenching my jaw as the screen goes black. "Hypocrite," I mutter, agreement coming from all around.

"I'm honestly surprised it took them so long to say something," Dad admits. "It's been nearly 48 hours now."

"They don't usually deal with the press." Bruce reminds us. "Maybe that's as fast as they could get it."

I shake my head. "Whatever. Point is, they're finally speaking up and the public will start taking sides." I lean to look at the StarkPad my dad was holding. "Where was this?"

"Hartford Square, Connecticut, and it's actually still going on. Will be for another hour and a half." Dad reports. "And that is where you come in."

I raise an eyebrow and tilt my head.

"We need you to get into this rally," he points at the TV screen, "and get as much video feed as you possibly can."

"Me?" I question. "Beta III isn't exactly inconspicuous and I don't have Beta IV done yet."

Dad shakes his head. "Without the suit."

"I left all my Sparrow gear at home," I remind him. "And even if I did bring it, none of my gear records video."

"I took care of that," he waves me off dismissively.

"And how am I even getting there?" I ask. "Hartford's an hour and a half away – by the time I get there it'll be over."

"And I have fast cars that can get you there in half an hour." he counters. "Come on, like you didn't know that."

"Why does it have to be me? I'm not a spy." I argue weakly.

"Can you see anyone else doing this? I'm world famous and naturally loud, the tiniest thing could set Bruce off and then boom! Hulk, and that's not helping anyone. Rhodey's the heavy infantry here, and he's not very sneaky. Darcy is…Darcy."

I glare at him.

He gives me a stern look in return.

I drop the stare-off first, falling back into my chair. "Fine. What do I need to do?"

* * *

Twenty minutes later I'm fully dressed in mission gear and having a tiny, almost invisible earpiece shoved in my ear canal.

The mission gear included a pair of lightly insulated black pants, a pair of black hiking boots, my net-shooting gloves, and a black jacket and hood that were streamlined yet still padded because it was just over 30 degrees Fahrenheit in Connecticut right now. I was also brining two pistols, a pair of binoculars, and a knife, which were hidden in various spots on my person.

"There's hopefully not going to be much reason for me to keep tabs on you," Darcy explains as she finishes situating the earpiece and makes sure my hood covers it, "because literally your only job is to listen for about an hour and then radio in for pickup, but we're not cutting any corners. The only reasons you should radio in are for pickup, because the rally's turned into a riot, or because you've been spotted – in which case you need to get the hell out of there and _then_ radio in. Got it?"

I nod and straighten my gloves one last time as my dad walks back into the room with a pair of keys in his hand. "Ready?"

I give one last glance to Darcy, who was now working on setting up Mission Control at the table, before nodding. "Ready."

Dad leads me to an elevator, which takes us down stairs to the basement parking garage, and then over to a coppery-orange Audi V8. "Your chariot awaits, milady."

I roll my eyes but climb in anyways, bucking in as Dad stomps on the accelerator, quickly bringing us up to 175 mph as we hit the road.

The drive there is silent, my thoughts occupied with which building roof I was supposed to be on and where on that roof I would most likely be unseen.

Thirty minutes later, as promised, the car pulls into a shaded spot not far from my destination.

"You've got everything planned?" my dad asks as he turns to look at me.

"Yeah."

"And you're going to check in with Darcy?"

"Of course." I sigh.

"And-"

"Dad." I cut him off. "I'm good, but I still need that recording device…"

"Oh, right." He reaches over into the glove compartment and pulls out a black box about the size of a matchbox. "Here you go."

I nod and take the box, slipping it into an inner pocket of my jacket. I take a step back and give my dad a two fingered salute. "Iron Man."

He returns my salute as he shifts into gear. "Good luck, Iron Beta." And then he drives away in a flurry of snow.

I'm moving almost immediately, breaking into a ground-eating jog as I check in with the compound. "Base, this is Beta, do you read me?"

" _Copy, Beta."_ Darcy confirms. _"I read you loud and clear. Good luck."_

The comms are silent again until I find my position; in other words, a four story building on the southwest edge of the rally that had a pretty good view of everything.

I use my net bracelets to scale the side of the building, Spiderman-style, before I settle onto my stomach on the northeast corner of the roof, planting the device and quickly turning it on. "I'm in position," I whisper into my comm.

" _Roger that."_ Darcy replies. _"And now…we wait."_

And I do.

The rally, I'll admit, was not a pleasant place to be. It was crowded, loud, and people were – under the leadership of Captain America, the only confirmed attending Avenger – screaming my name and those of my remaining teammates, calling us traitors and deserters of our cause.

Not two days ago I was a hero.

I shift my position again on the roof, mainly to avoid freezing to the concrete. "Base, this is Beta, will someone give me a time check please?"

" _You've got another twenty, Beta. Freeze your butt off yet?"_ Darcy teases.

"You wish," I retort before falling silent again and reaching up to adjust my hood against the snow. I sigh and shift again, feeling the cold in every inch of my body.

And then my eye catches something that makes my blood boil and my heart freeze simultaneously.

There's a figure standing about forty yards away, two rooftops over to the east. Even in the nearly blinding snow I can see the quiver on his back and the distinctive curve of a bow.

Which can only mean one thing…

 _Oh crap._

I flatten myself against the roof and use the six inch ledge bordering the roof for cover as I pull out my binoculars.

A closer look at Hawkeye reveals the same sandy brown hair, covered in a black ski cap, and I can even see his familiar grey eyes, but what takes my breath away (besides the biting cold, that is) is how _old_ he looks.

I understand that what we do – or what he does now, what I _used_ to do – is stressful, especially regarding the latest circumstances, but even after the toughest missions the Cli – _Hawkeye_ I remember was always ready with a joke or a smirk or a smile, keeping his appearance to the youthful early-20's that it really was.

But whomever I was looking at now – because this _couldn't_ be the same guy I remembered – looked to be about double that. I knew what we were going through was hard (I was freezing to a roof for my cause!) but if he looked this stressed after _two days…_

Was it possible that he didn't want this either?

 _He never said anything to keep you there_ , a snide little voice reminds me, _he just let you go._

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, shaking my focus onto the mission. I frantically trigger my earpiece. "Darcy," I pant, "I – I need pick up. Now, p-please."

" _What? Beta, you have ten minutes left, you-"_

"Darcy," I push, already attaching my nets to the west side of the building and grabbing the recorder, "one of the Avengers is unexpectedly on site. I need pick up. Now."

" _Beta, who is it?"_

"I-"

" _Beta! Who. Is. The. Avenger?!"_

"Hawkeye." I hiss as my feet hit the ground. "Base. Pickup. _Now._ Before I hijack one of the suits and fly it home." I threaten.

" _Okay, alright, Iron Man and Dr. Banner just set off, ETA 20 minutes. Stay out of sight until then."_

"Will do." I shiver as I lean against a wall in an alleyway, keeping an eye on the road I originally came in on.

Sure enough, a big, grey, SUV/van/ambulance came screeching around the corner twenty minutes later, right on time. I allow myself to be pulled into the back, which had been converted into a mini-ambulance, and stripped of my earpiece, jacket, and boots, all of which were wet and nearly frozen stiff.

I'm too busy shivering to mind much as Bruce wraps me in layer after layer of heated blankets, my dad mumbling nonsensical apologies about sending me out in weather like this in the middle of December.

The last things in my mind just before I let myself drift off are the screams of the rally and the pain etched on my maybe-sorta-ex-boyfriend's face.

This war was having a bigger effect than we ever imagined.

Question was: _were we ready?_


	5. Chapter 5

Clint's POV

* * *

There were a lot of words I could use to describe my emotions right now.

I was pissed. I was confused. I was tired. I was slightly heartbroken.

At the moment, I was taking the good majority of these feelings out on a punching bag.

I was trying to get a grip on the situation in a way that Tay – _Beta_ told me always worked for her: looking at the die hard facts and then expanding on those facts.

Okay then. Fact: the Avengers have split almost in half.

Fact: we split because the Starks are reckless and disobeyed orders one too many times.

However…fact: they saved an innocent child in doing so.

For the last 36 hours, Steve had been ignoring that part; all he could see was _reckless, disobeying orders, I'm their leader_.

He was seeing things in black and white, no in between – but then again, a lot of leaders did that.

My commanding officer in the army saw things like that, and I followed his orders well enough. Fury did that, and I willingly followed his orders because that was better than the alternative. And now Steve did that too, and I had followed his orders because I agreed with them and thought they were right.

Until now.

Following the order Steve gave would have meant letting an innocent girl die. I knew that.

So the Starks, who were never ones for following anyone but themselves and occasionally each other, threw that order out the window and went off on an extremely reckless mission that ended as it usually did: with someone getting hurt but someone else getting saved.

I can think of a few times that's happened, actually:

When Taylor was fifteen, she refused to get away from a bomb and lost an arm…saving London in the process.

When Taylor was eighteen, she refused to step out of a fight when she was clearly injured…but she ended Loki's reign – permanently.

When Taylor was nineteen, they refused to give SHIELD the IGUM robot, making all of us fugitives...but ended up saving the world _again._

I saw the pattern here: they risked everything in a decision that held no regard for their own safety, but they almost always made it out of whatever situation they had been in not only alive but usually better off.

Steve did not see that pattern. He didn't see the life they had saved, he only saw the order the two had disobeyed.

And now we were split in half, and I didn't know – I don't think _anyone_ knew – if we'd ever be able to mend ourselves. My ex-girlfriend (I doubt we could be dating right now) was who-knows-where, fighting against people who were once people she called _friends_ , only to support what she thought was right.

And I can't say she was wrong.

I can't say that I wish I hadn't obeyed that order.

I can't say that I wish I had left with her.

The only reason I didn't fight harder for her to stay was because I knew Beta, I had known her for four and a half years and dated her for a year and a half.

If I had fought harder, she still would have left, but then a large portion of her reasoning would be spite. If she was going to leave, I wanted us to at least be on good terms so that if this war ever ended, one way or another, maybe, just _maybe_ , there would be hope for us.

That, and I knew she was going to leave, no matter what I – or anyone else – said, purely because she was following what she believed to be right. And as much as the Starks loved to brag about their overly-logical brains, most of that they did was fueled by their hearts. I had no doubt that their brains were busy calculating outcomes and percentages and a thousand other things I will never understand, but their hearts were the driving force behind the majority of the reasoning.

If either Iron Man or Iron Beta believed something was right, they would do it; come hell or high water. And I wish good luck to whomever tries to stop them.

But was what they were doing right?

I wasn't sure.

I had based a good majority of my life on following orders. First the military, but that fell through quickly. Then SHIELD, but it turns out that was HYDRA all along, so I'm not even sure how much I did for them was for the good guys.

And now with Steve, I've followed orders and its split the best team I've ever had down the middle.

To be honest, I can't tell if this is really because the Starks' refusal to follow orders or if it's just two spoiled toddlers who can't share their toys.

If it's the latter, I might kill something. Or some _one_.

When will Steve learn? How many fights do they have to have before he'll realize Iron Man and Beta are reckless by nature and he should deal with that?

How much more pain has to be caused before he sees that a good majority of us are not soldiers?

I'm definitely not – I was, once, but that was then and this is now. Neither is Natasha; who, for all her training, is easily showing the sense of loss she feels over this new breech.

Our two new "teammates", Barnes and Falcon, are tied closely to the Captain, as his best friend and the guy he owes for helping him out on a mission. They're both also soldiers, ones that are trained to follow orders without question.

They are _replacements._

Replacements for Tony, with all his eccentricities and genius, and Taylor, who was the brightest member of the team when it came to disposition. She was also the one everyone felt they had to protect, as Bruce had said last year when she was taken by Loki.

Also, I loved her.

And now, as brutal as our break up had been, I can't find it within me to be mad at her because a part of me saw where she was standing with her ideas.

Not forty eight hours, my now-ex-girlfriend was laughing with me over an old mission involving seventy squirrels and a pound of peanut butter.

The next time I saw her, it would be with a gold-titanium barrier between us on a battlefield somewhere.

I don't know if I'm ready for that.


	6. Chapter 6

Taylor's POV

* * *

After Dad, Bruce, and I return to the compound, I quickly change into a more comfortable t-shirt and a pair of jeans, but only after doing a lot of convincing: convincing Bruce that "I'm fine, see, my vitals are normal, no, that machine is not malfunctioning!", convincing my dad that "I don't have hypothermia! Right, Bruce? Yeah, see, I'm fine, quit being a mother hen.", convincing Darcy that "you did not screw up that badly! I was your first mission, literally, quit being so self-pitying, it doesn't look good on you.", and convincing Rhodey that "You really shouldn't go kill Hawkeye, he might send an arrow through your eye, trust me, don't do it."

Anyways, I get changed into a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans and head back up to the War Room for the post-mission debriefing. I arrive within minutes, plopping down into my now-customary seat just to the right of my dad.

"So." Rhodey leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest. "What went wrong?"

"I can't tell you that," Darcy admits, "but I can tell you when things went fuzzy on my end." She pulls up satellite photos of Hartford Square from a few hours before, selecting a specific one and zooming in on my position. "This is the forty-five minute mark, the last routine check-in that was done. You can see Taylor here, who clearly look like she's freezing her butt off, still in position near the northeast corner of the roof." She swipes to another picture of the same area. "This is the forty-five minute mark, and she's nowhere to be seen."

I step up beside her, swiping to view the edge of the roof where you can barely see a black blur pressed against the small ledge. "I'm right there. As I told Darcy, I had a small run in with an unexpected guest."

"We're you in any danger?" Rhodey asks. "Did he seem hostile?"

I shake my head. "He didn't even see me."

"Then why did you abort?" My godfather pushes. "We had fifteen minutes left!"

"Aside from the fact that I was nearly the next generation Capsicle?" I raise an eyebrow and swipe over so that we're looking at a different rooftop, this one with the picture of the other archer clearly shown. "This."

"Hawkeye." Bruce realizes. "Hawkeye was the other Avenger - the one you saw."

I nod in confirmation. "He caused me to abort early."

"Why?" Rhodey asks again.

"Officially," I take a deep breath and release it, "I couldn't risk him seeing me. I was too cold to move quickly."

"And...unofficially?"

I stay quiet for a moment, but Darcy jumps in for me. "Unofficially, call it a bad break up." she offers.

I shoot her a grateful glance before turning my attention back to my dad. "Is it clear enough now?"

He shakes his head and sighs. "Is...will your attachment to Hawkeye compromise your position?"

I rear back slightly. "What?"

"You're clearly still attached to Hawkeye. Will this compromise your...effectiveness?"

" _Effectiveness_?" I parrot, a slight frown forming on my lips. "I'm not a tool."

"I know that," Dad placates. "But I need you to be 100% here, not aborting important missions because of your overwhelming teen angst."

"I don't get what the problem is here!" I argue. "I got forty five minutes of video, which should be _plenty_ , because we've got you, Bruce and myself working together with a combined IQ of almost 600!"

"572, actually," he corrects. "But that's not the point I'm trying to make here! If the torch you're holding for Barton puts anyone here in danger, tell me and I will have you put in a safe house on whatever island Betty's currently on!"

"Like _hell_ you will!" I snarl. "Go ahead! Try it! See how far you get!"

My father's eyes gain a warning gleam. "You don't get to talk to me like that, Taylor. I'm still your father."

I actually step back in shock. "You're playing the 'parent' card on me?" I snort and spread my arms to indicate our surroundings. "We are currently standing in a War Room. In a secret compound. In some crappy little town in the middle of nowhere. There's a freaking _war_ going on out there! The world is _splitting in half because of us!_ You do not _get_ to play the _parent card_ here!" I finish, screaming now, my voice holding almost a hysterical edge as my vocal chords protest harshly.

My father sighs. "Taylor-" he tries again.

"No!" I howl, harshly kicking my chair away and barely hearing it clatter against the wall behind me as I whip around and storm towards the door.

"Taylor Maria Stark-" he tries again.

" _Пошел ты!_ " I shriek, rounding on him. "Черт вас! Черт вас всех в ад и обратно! Я ненавижу тебя! Я ненавижу тебя!"

And then I'm gone, the door slamming loudly behind me.

I begin to storm down the hallway, but I pause about two yards out. I didn't know where I was going - normally after a violent shouting match with my father, I would go and see my boyfriend; rant for a while, blow something up, and then end up doing something mushy and couple-y until I calmed down.

But Hawkeye wasn't here, so I just shrug and resort to wandering the halls.

Eventually I find a particular corridor that I like, facing the courtyard with floor-to-ceiling windows separated by thick white beams. I lean against one of the beams and the watch the snow fall outside, covering the ground in a white blanket that make me wish for snowball fights and hot chocolate and warmth-

My vision blurs, and I swipe a hand across my eyes angrily at I clench my prosthetic hand into a fist, mentally reminding myself to make sure it was in top condition after the cold as I hurry along to the nearest flight of stairs and down to the floor with the labs.

I enter my lab and pull up the schematics for Beta IV, which was almost half finished, and plant myself in my chair.

Enough with all the angst, I had a job to do.

* * *

About an hour later, I get an alert that means I'm getting an email.

I sigh and pull up an unread message from Jane ( _note to self: change email_ ) with a subject line of _Consequences._

I frown slightly as I see an image attached, quickly opening the file and swiping it onto a separate screen.

And then what I'm looking at is the most guilt-inducing thing I have ever seen and a bit like a train wreck: equal parts captivating and horrifying.

The picture is of what looks like a teenage boy, maybe 17, and he's probably dead judging by the state of his body – blood matting his hair and coloring his face, limbs bent unnaturally, chest looking like he's got at least a couple ribs completely smashed.

And, yes, while that alone was bad, I had to admit death didn't faze me all that much anymore. The nail in the coffin.

The kid's _sweatshirt._

He was wearing a purple and black hoodie, designed to look like a suit, and if I zoomed in enough I could catch a glimpse of the Stark Industries tag at the bottom.

The kid was definitely a fan of mine before he died, but that didn't explain why I was reading this email.

Until I scroll down slightly to catch the news headline at the bottom of the picture:

 _17-YEAR-OLD KILLED BY CROWD IN AVENGERS' RALLY_

 _17-year-old Christopher Phillips was killed today in an Avengers' Rally in Hartford Square, Connecticut. Phillips was trampled by the crowd because he was wearing clothing that supported Taylor Stark, or Iron Beta as you may know her. Ms. Stark was one of the defectors from the main team-_

I slam my eyes shut. A kid, younger than I was, got _killed_ because he was supporting me.

He was killed. Dead. Gone.

Killed…

* * *

Darcy POV

The sight I encounter when I enter Taylor's lab has got to be one of the scariest things I've ever seen. It even beat the rabid marsupials from the Australia adventure.

Taylor was curled in a ball under one of the tables, hands gripping her hair as she rocked herself back and forth and muttered something unintelligible.

I'm across the room in a heartbeat. "Taylor?"

She just curls in on herself tighter.

"Taylor?" I try again, dropping to my knees next to her. Once I'm close enough, I can see streaks of blood coating her hands and arms.

My breath catches. "Taylor, what's wrong?"

"…killed…" she gasps out.

"What?" I question. "Taylor, who was killed? What are you talking about?"

"I killed him…" she sobs harshly. "Я убил его!"

I ignore the babbled Russian, instead focusing on what she said. "Taylor, it's okay, calm down-"

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. "It's not okay! _Nothing is okay!_ " she screams.

"Okay, alright, then it's not okay," I backpedal calmly, as if I were dealing with a frightened animal. "But you need to calm down. You're scaring me over here."

"I can't…" she gasps, hands tugging at her hair, which I quickly stop by reaching up and using a pressure point that Betty had taught me about to make her hands go slack. I pull her hands away from her head to find blood oozing from four, small, crescent-shaped wounds on her palms, which explains where the blood came from.

I quietly swear and reach over to grab a rag from the floor and make sure it's clean before balling it into her hands, both to give her something to hold and stop the bleeding until I could get Bruce to look at it.

"Okay, Taylor, I need to talk to me, or else this train is going nowhere. Who died?"

"The…the kid…"

"What kid?" I question softly.

"Ph-Phillips…" she stutters. "He's dead…I killed him…"

I frown slightly. I still had no idea what she was talking about, but I did know she couldn't have physically killed whoever 'Phillips' was because we all got alerts whenever someone entered or left the compound, and as far as I knew, we had gotten none.

I back away slightly, maybe to get Bruce or Tony or someone else – _anyone else_ – to help out here when my foot hits something behind me with a dull _thud_.

I look down to see one of the glass holoscreens that were quite common in Stark labs – and _only_ Stark labs. I bend down to read the screen better, grimacing at the picture of a mutilated body.

And a word in the text catches my eye – _Phillips. "…Christopher Phillips was killed today…"_

So 'Phillips' was Christopher Phillips, and he was, in fact, dead. But why would Taylor think _she_ had killed him?

"He was at the rally," she whispers hoarsely behind me. "Wearing one of my sweatshirts. He was trampled. _I. Killed. Him._ "

I blink slowly before reacting in the only way I knew how: I slapped her.

Hey, I said it was the only way I knew, not the best way.

"What the – Ow! Dar- _cy_!" she whines, rubbing at her red cheek.

"Oh, woman up." I scoff. "Listen to me, 198. That kid made his own decision to be at that rally today. He made his own decision to wear your sweatshirt. He could have been wearing an Iron Man sweatshirt, and it would have had the same effect. He could've worn a Hulk sweatshirt, or a War Machine sweatshirt. Hell, he could've been wear a _me_ sweatshirt – hey, do they make those?"

"No," she mutters after a moment, still trying to adjust to the change in the pace of the conversation.

I shrug. "Too bad. Point is, _you_ did not kill Christopher Phillips. That crowd killed Christopher Phillips. If you want to be technical, _Christopher Phillips_ killed Christopher Phillips by making the clearly stupid decision to go to a rally that was based on opposing us in that clothing. But you were never to blame here."

She stares at me for another second before waving for me to move so she can get out from under the table.

I watch her as she gets up and starts walking towards the door. "Um, Taylor? What are you doing?" I question timidly, still a little put off by the wild look in her eyes and the dried blood in her hair – which I would have to explain to both Bruce and Tony, what fun.

She looks at me over her shoulder. "You're right, I'm not to blame here. But there's a war going on, and it's time we got to work on ending it."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: just a quick note. I apologize that I've stopped giving shout outs, but the site is apparently having a glitch where I can't view any reviews past chapter 4. The only way I can see them is when they come in through email.**

 **I think this is a site-wide thing, because other authors are complaining about it. So just bear with me, guys, until gets its act straightened out.**

* * *

As it turns out, "getting to work on ending this war", as I told Darcy, meant two full days of research. Bruce and I scrupulously looked at what our ex-team was up to, going over every single tiny detail with a fine-tooth comb.

We looked at what they said to the public, what they posted on their various social media sites, and Bruce paid special attention to Clint because I was avoiding my maybe-ex like the _plague._ But the rest of them were fair game – I had a tracker on Falcon's twitter feed, I knew that Barnes was just untangling Facebook, and I had actually managed to put a leak on Natasha's text messages, allowing me to watch as they came in – her phone was eerily unguarded for a master spy.

So far, they had already had two rallies, which was a surprising amount, seeing as they lost their main press liaisons, namely my dad and I. Both of the rallies had featured Cap as the main spokesperson, but the Widow was also there – she was his new deputy – and Falcon showed up more often than not.

So far, we had not descended into warfare yet, it was all just trash talk. That didn't mean that I had stopped sleeping with my bow with reach or halted Darcy's impromptu gun training.

Just in case.

And speaking of trash talk, our little rebel group hadn't had any conferences of our own, no matter how much I wanted to. Rhodey, who had apologized for yelling at me about the failed mission, had said that it was too dangerous since we were running from the law.

"Not technically," I responded, "because they haven't pressed charged yet. Really we're only 'running' from Captain America."

"And Black Widow." Bruce adds. "And Hawkeye, and Falcon, and the Winter Soldier."

I glare at him. "Not helping."

"And shouldn't that be reason enough?" Darcy protests. "Have you ever seen them when they're angry?"

"We have the Hulk." I wave her off, unconcerned. "And my aim can match Hawkeye's, if not beat it - he's said so himself."

"But your modesty could use a little work," Rhodey comments.

I shrug. "Whatever, not my point. My point is that it's already been about a week since the schism and they've already held two conferences. _Two_. We have had none."

"Because we're the underdogs here!" my dad insists.

I scrub a hand over my face. "No, you're looking at this wrong...we're not in the wrong. We haven't done anything illegal, Dad, just reverted to our pre-Avengers days and brought a few new people with us."

My dad frowns. "I didn't like our pre-Avengers days."

I just purse my lips and glance at my shoes. "Neither did I, but we have no choice." I turn to my godfather. "What are they trying to charge us with?"

"Not much," he admits. "Unless we go out and violently take action, which would mean disturbing the peace, they can't charge us with anything. They want to, though." he warns. "Watch your step."

I nod sharply, my eyes focusing on an unseen point as I formulate a plan.

"What are you planning, Beta?" my dad ask, soft but cautionary.

I glance at him. "Did you bring any formal wear?"

"I brought us each two business suits," he offers.

I nod and begin to pace back and forth across the room.

Darcy breaks the tense silence after a minute. "Alright, out with it Beta."

"We could do a press conference." I suggest. "Get our own voices heard."

Everyone in the room shares a long look.

Iron Man nods. "I need to make some calls."

* * *

Two hours later, we've got plans to show up on _Greetings from Rhode Island_ , which was a talk show that was probably not all that big if you consider the size of the state, but it was better than nothing.

I was dressed in a classic, black and white business suit with patent leather black flats. My dad was dressed in a dark grey suit with a lighter pinstripe and dark sunglasses.

We both looked fairly unassuming, but we also had one suit each and a few extra weapons hidden underneath where we were going to be sitting on stage, placed there by Rhodey who had scouted the place about twenty minutes ago.

"No second thoughts, right?" Dad asks as he holds open the studio door for me, the car driving away behind us.

I shake my head, careful not to mess up my hair, which was simply, brushed, straightened, and held in place with hairspray. "Nope. Unless, of course, this all goes to hell, in which case I was never here in the first place."

He rolls his eyes at me as we check in with the front desk and the receptionist, a girl named Madison, according to her nametag, directs us backstage.

"Um, ma'am, sir?" she squeaks.

"Yes?" I look over at her curiously.

"Uh, I just wanted to, um, say th-thanks you for…for what you did. I, um, believe in what you're doing."

I nod politely, internally grinning at her stutter. "Thank you. Means a lot."

Madison nods, blushes, and scurries off.

"Can I get her a raise?" my dad mutters quietly.

"I'll look into that," I nod, taking out my phone and tapping a few things as we continue moving backstage.

"And we're sure we know what to say?" Dad asks for the thousandth time as we enter the right wing of backstage.

I roll my eyes but make an effort not to move as an aid clips a mic on my collar. "Yes, we've gone over this. I'll be fine."

"Even if they ask questions about Hawkeye?"

" _Yes._ " I hiss. "I can handle it, trust me."

He bites his lip and reaches over to gently squeeze my shoulder.

"T-minus one minute!" someone yells in the background, and the activity around us speeds up again.

I take a deep breath and shake out my shoulder, mentally beginning to recite the Fibonacci sequence in my head, drowning out the chatter around me.

"Five, four, three, two, one…and, we are live!"

I hear the live audience cheer as the lights come on onstage, the host doing the usual spiel – welcome to the studio, glad to have you here, insert a few jokes, etc.

And then she begins. "Alright, alright! So, I have a special guest here for you today, a man that you all know very well, and it turned out that he happened to be in the area and agreed to come down and grace you with his presence – introducing the man you all know, the man all guys want to be and almost all women want to be _with_ , Mr. Tony Stark!"

The crowd's cheers grow almost deafening as Dad throws up his signature double peace signs and walks out to greet the audience and host.

"And, as a special treat, a two-for-one deal if you will, please welcome America's Princess, Taylor Stark!"

I step out into the literal spotlight, waving at the crowd that was now cheering at almost a riotous level. I didn't mind the nickname very much – it wasn't the best, and I much preferred _sparrow_ , _glowstick_ , or _kiddo_ , but 'America's Princess' was loads better that 'Prodigy of Death' and a few other, meaner options.

I walk to join Dad and the host, slipping into what my dad called my 'Superstar Step' – it was more graceful than usual, with more measured steps and a little bit more hip movement that I normally used.

I take a seat on the loveseat that's been set up, my dad sitting between me and the armchair that held the host, already working on charming the living daylights out of her.

The host waits until the audience quiets before beginning. "Hello! Thank you so much for coming, both of you. So glad you could make it."

"Glad to be here, Ann-" I've stopped wondering how Dad always knows their names, "-and it wasn't any trouble."

"That's good." The host – Ann – nods. "Now, you aren't normally from around here, what brings you to Rhode Island?"

I quickly jump to answer. "You could say we're on vacation, I suppose, but if you've seen the news lately you'd be better informed than that."

"Ah, yes." Ann nods thoughtfully. "The second coming of the Civil War. Thoughts?"

Dad shrugs. "Obviously we're feeling a bit sore over it, but we are not the only ones. The Avengers are doing their fair share of fighting back, and I thought it only appropriate that we took the same action."

Ann nods again. "Okay, so let's go over the new rosters, shall we? The Avengers have Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier. You, Mr. Stark-"

"Call me Tony, please."

"Okay. You, Tony, brought your daughter and Dr. Bruce Banner with you when you left. Have you made any new additions?"

"We've brought on War Machine, a good friend of mine, along with a citizen that will remain unnamed for their own safety." Dad explains.

"That's completely respectable." Ann gives him a warm smile before turning to me. "May I call you Taylor?"

"Why not?" I grin roughly.

"One of the biggest stories in the news nowadays is your star-crossed romance with Hawkeye, your now-ex-teammate. It has become quite the scandal, really. Comments? Thoughts? Feelings?"

I take a deep breath. "I will admit that the breach in the team has caused Hawkeye and I to…end our relationship. That's official. And yes, I am feeling a bit disconcerted over this, just like any other woman would be." I shrug. "That's normal, and I'm human. However, I'm not falling to pieces over it – I left, he stayed, that's simply how the chips fell. Now I need to focus on my new job; making sure the split doesn't cause a major break and affect more people than necessary. Maybe, after all of the dust settles, maybe then I can reach out and try to repair what's broken."

I give the nearest camera a quick glance, some irrational part of me hoping the other archer was watching. "But until then I need to keep my focus on track and intact."

Ann nods, eyes shining wetly as she gives me a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry, that sounded painful. Now, Tony, what was the exact reason behind the defection?"

He takes a deep breath. "A difference in opinion based on an order that it was better for us not to follow. To quote Albert Einstein – 'Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.' We – Taylor and I – were not going to follow an order that went against what was right, I don't care who said what."

"That's understandable," the hostess nods. "And honorable. Do you ever feel like this is going to be resolved?"

"I don't know," Dad confesses. "But the Iron Legion will not back down until the Avengers do, and that's a promise. There will be no settling, no kowtowing, and no surrender until they agree to do the same. We will not let our guard down just because we know our enemies; in fact, that's all the more reason to keep our wits about us."

Ann nods along. "Well, that sounds tense. If you're feeling this heated towards your enemies, are there any hard feelings within your new team?"

Dad and I glance at each other, and he gives a minute shake of his head before turning back to Ann. "We've put up with each other for almost twenty years now, that's not going to fall apart now."

I roll my eyes and squirm as he draws me into a one-armed hug. "You're wrinkling my suit, quit wrinkling my suit."

"Aww," Ann coos at us. "That's so sweet."

I huff and shove my dad off, nearly shoving him off the seat. "Get _off_."

He scoffs at me and brushes imaginary dirt off his suit jacket. "Well you're nice."

I give him a cheeky grin and quip, "You raised me," before turning back to Ann. "No, there's no tension right now...as we just demonstrated. But in all seriousness, if we're going to war with five extremely powerful people, two of which are super-soldiers, we need all the help we can get."

"Thank you, Taylor. And that's all the time we have for today, folks, so let's give these two amazing people one last round of applause!"

I stand and wave to the crowd, keeping a smile pasted on my face the entire time, before the lights dim and I walk out quickly, my dad just behind me.

"Well?" he asks once we're backstage again, unbuttoning a shirt button or two.

"That went well," I muse, taking a swig out of the bottle of water an aid handed me. "I'd forgotten how hot stage lights were. And you wrinkled my suit."

"That's what irons are for," he brushes me off. "Nice sob story about lover boy."

"It was not a sob story!" I insist. "I wasn't going to spill my guts on worldwide TV."

"That's a precarious balance," Dad admits. "You don't want to seem heartless either."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"That's not a _good_ thing."

I just shrug and toss my bottle in the trash before making my way out of the building, hearing my dad follow.

I was feeling a little bit lighter - we had said our piece, we had made our move.

The ball was in their court now.

The game was on.


	8. Chapter 8

I was a nervous wreck.

I don't use those words lightly, either – I was jumpy, my sleeping patterns were worse than usual, and 75% of my brain was constantly looking for something I might have missed, something I didn't see the first time.

The reason behind all this anxiety? It had been two days since the first Iron Legion press conference, and we had not heard a single word from the Avengers. Not one text, no press releases, no activity whatsoever.

And everything says they should have responded by now – so why hadn't they?

This felt like that calm before a category 5 hurricane, and I was so on edge it wasn't even funny.

"Anything yet?" Darcy asks from behind me.

"Nope." I sigh and spin my chair around so that my back is to the monitor I had been staring at. "Nothing. It's unnerving."

"Why don't you work on the suit?" Darcy suggests.

"It's in the fabricating process and the only thing I can do there is wait," I groan. "Darcy, I'm bored."

"Go…" she makes a vague hand motion. "Make something. Hey, I need to borrow a tablet."

I hand her one of the nearby StarkPads. "And for the record, I do not _make_ things. I _create_ things. I am a _creator_."

"With a god complex to boot," Darcy observes, tapping a few things on the tablet.

"What are you even doing on there?" I lean over to try and look at the screen. "I don't have any game on there."

"I know. I'm sending an email."

"As long as it's untraceable…" I shrug. "Can I ask for what?"

"Retribution," she offers. "Revenge, justice, reprisal, vindication…"

"I get it." I cut her off. "And I'm not going to ask, the people you hang out with are scary."

She looks up at me, confused. "I hang out with _you_."

"Exactly." I grin mysteriously and turn back to the monito I was at earlier, opening up a diagram of the Avengers' jet to study it for weaknesses.

Silence settles over my lab, a silence that is pierced about ten minutes later by the intercom buzzing. _"Beta, Darcy, need you for a meeting in the war room in five."_ Dad – or Iron Man, since he's using codenames – orders.

I'm immediately on my feet, shutting down various computers.

"He's serious?" Darcy asks, half-question half-statement, as she follows me to the elevator.

I nod and punch the button for the second floor. "Something wicked this way comes."

She simply nods at that and we fall silent again, each lost in our own heads, until we enter Conference Room Two.

"Take a seat," Dad says by way of greeting, lacking the usual preamble. I rush to my seat next to him and wait for him to begin.

"It's been precisely 49 hours since that press conference," he tells us. "Please tell me _someone_ had found _something_."

Nobody says anything.

"Taylor?" he tries.

I shake my head. "Nothing new, just studying their jet specs."

"Rhodey?" Dad asks again, beginning to grow desperate.

"Nothing, sorry Tony."

"Bruce? _Please_?"

Bruce doesn't say anything, and that's answer enough.

My dad sighs. "Darcy…?"

"Sorry." is all she says.

My dad scrubs a hand across his face, sinking into his chair wearily. "So we're stuck."

"Pretty much," I admit, giving it to him straight – just like he wanted.

"There _has_ to be something!" he insists. "I am the smartest person _alive_ -"

"And I'm second," I interrupt. "Bruce is third. They know that."

"They've got to be playing us," he grumbles, getting up to go over to the window.

I watch his hands tighten around the windowsill before turning back to the other three. "Darcy, dismissed." I order, pouring authority into my voice. "War Machine, you too. Go back to monitoring air and land space alerts. Banner, go, but be prepared to be called back."

They all hesitate for a bit before Bruce stands and dips his head at me. "Understood, Iron Beta. Come on, Darcy."

I wait for them all to leave before I turn back to my dad; who, in my absence, has poured himself a glass of scotch.

(It's sad that I can tell that, five feet away, purely off _smell_.)

I frown. "Thought you kicked that habit."

"Desperate times, desperate measures."

I shrug and plop into my chair, propping my chin on my hands. "Just don't get too drunk, I can't lead these people."

"You'd do a better job than I am," he sighs. "You might have found something by now."

"The absence of any and all new info has _nothing_ to do with the way you lead this team." I insist. "Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nichego, rien, gar nichts, niente-"

"I get it." he sighs. "What was that last one?"

"Italian. Before that was German."

He glances at me. "I didn't know you knew German."

"I know enough." I shrug. "I'm not fluent though, I-"

I'm cut off by the door banging open – and I don't even know how it can do that, being automatically pressurized – and Rhodey rushing into the room. "Guys, we have a problem!"

I'm on my feet in a split second, as is my dad, who suddenly looks very sober. "What is it?" I demand.

He pulls up the air traffic monitoring system. "There's a blip – see, there? – but it's all blurry. It's a big plane, too."

"Do you think they hacked the system?" Dad wonders aloud, drink long forgotten.

I press my lips into a thin white line. "Not possible, we're the only hackers."

"But what if…?"

I worry my lip between my teeth for a moment before approaching Rhodey. "Let me see."

He willingly moves out of the way as I roll my chair over. I'm quickly to the root of the program, frowning as I browse through the lines of perfect code. "It's not the program," I announce. "Any interference is not on our end."

I can feel my father's body heat as he looks at the screen over my shoulder. "Cloaking device?"

"Maybe…" I muse. "Mirrors are also a possibility – we can _see_ the ship, but we can't see _the ship_ , if that makes sense."

"Does the Avengers jet have a cloaking device?" Rhodey asks.

I think back to the specs that I was looking at earlier this morning. "Yes," I confirm tersely after a moment, "yes."

The tension in the room _skyrockets_.

"Head count!" Dad barks. "Iron Beta, War Machine, Darcy…where is Bruce?"

I glance around the room, not seeing the usually-human green rage monster. I shiver slightly as I glance around the room, meeting four gazes of fear that were probably identical to mine.

My dad utters some colorful words before resuming to give orders. "Split up and find him! I'll search the labs, Darcy, do the ground floor, Beta, you take the roof, and Rhodey, you check this floor. Take your weapons."

I nod and sprint out of the room, first to my room to grab my bow and quiver since Beta IV wasn't quite finished, then back up to the roof.

Thankfully the weather of Rhode Island had decided to cooperate today, which meant that not only was it a pleasant seventy degrees outside, it was sunny and I could see the entire compound from my point on the west wing of the roof.

And there's no sign of Bruce anywhere. However…there was a weird feeling going on maybe fifteen feet in front of me. I couldn't see anything, but I was mentally cursing myself for not having my Sparrow gear, because the sunglasses could pick up heat signatures if I wanted, and I'd bet my quiver that I was looking at a really freaking huge heat signature right now.

I notch an explosive arrow and take steady aim at a target I can't even see, releasing it and praying for the best.

And it turns out that my aim is still awesome, because there's an explosion, the sound of shattering glass, and suddenly there's a jet.

I smirk and waste no time in drawing another arrow, this one a slow-burn one, and aiming again as the Avengers' jet takes off.

I pause. The _Avengers'_ jet was _here._ One, how did they even find us? Two, why were they here? And three, why were they in such a hurry to leave? I mean, other than the fact that I was shooting at them, of course.

And, to add to the questions, where the fricking hell was Bruce-

 _Wait._

Bruce was missing. The Avengers were suddenly here. They had arrived almost under our radar. And now they were rushing away.

I had a feeling I was dealing with two 2's here, and guess what, I just got 4.

I swear under my breath and fire the arrow, watching as it slowly burns a hole through the jet's roof, before turning and tearing back inside.

Four sets of eyes snap to me as I re-enter the building, four gazes looking equally desperate.

"So?" Dad questions. "Did you find him?"

"No," I admit, "but I found the Avengers' jet, and they left in a hurry."

My dad turns and kicks the nearest wall. "You know what this means. The Avengers found us-"

"And they've got Bruce, damn it."


	9. Chapter 9

I felt safest either in my lab or up higher than my surroundings.

Given that my personal lab was back at Avengers Tower and therefore in enemy hands, I had to settle for perching on a net that was attached to the ceiling of the War Room while Dad, Rhodey, and Darcy analyzed the satellite feeds that had been retrieved from a Stark satellite that was "conveniently" positioned over the compound.

"Beta, we found the right feed. Keep your eyes open."

I nod and flip onto my stomach, moving so that my head was out over the edge of the net. "I'm not Hawkeye, but I'll do my best."

He nods and hits a button and pulls up a holographic image of the roof, stamped a few hours earlier.

The feed starts with just showing Bruce wandering aimlessly around the roof, and if I squinted I could see his lips moving slightly.

"What's he doing?" Darcy asks quietly.

"Probably just clearing his head," my dad breathes. "He might be keeping the Hulk at bay."

"Shh!" I hiss as the picture moves. "Quinjet."

The room falls still and silent as we see the Quinjet materialize seemingly out of nowhere and a familiar lithe figure in black step out, her shock of red hair clearly distinguishable.

 _It makes sense that Widow would retrieve him again_ , I muse.

But then another figure steps out behind her, this one I've never seen before. But I do recognize him - or rather, I recognize his right arm.

"Barnes," I murmur faintly, and my dad just barely glances up at me and nods before staring at the video again.

Bruce looks surprised at the sudden jet (of course, it's as big as a small apartment) but he doesn't look surprised to see Widow step out; he looks fairly annoyed, in fact, not 'Hulk' annoyed but more 'why are you here, go away' annoyed.

They talk for a moment, and I can't hear what they say - the feed doesn't have audio - but based purely on body language, I've got a rough guess: Natasha is using her charm (seductiveness, whatever) to try and get Bruce to come ( _hand himself over_ ) willingly, and Bruce, loyal guy that he is, is essentially saying _hell no, screw you_ , only in gentler words.

And, of course, the Black Widow does not appreciate this. I watch as her face moves from soft and welcoming to a hard mask, turning her head around to say something to Barnes in Russian.

There's a fair amount of discontent below me because I'm the only one that can tell what she just said, but I ignore it, instead focusing all my attention on Barnes, who was now edging cautiously towards Bruce, who was moving away.

And then, almost faster than I can blink, there's a silver flash and Bruce is down and not getting back up.

"Pause!" my dad yelps. "The _hell_ was that?!"

I silently hop off my net, landing almost silently in a crouch. "She told him _Khorosho. Sdelay eto. -_ 'okay, do it.' That was a signal, obviously, because then Barnes moves. Play that sequence, five frames a minute."

Someone taps a few buttons and the feed rewinds a few moments before it plays again, much slower this time.

I watch as Barnes' metal arm swings towards Bruce's neck in slow motion, something held in his hand that didn't look like the right shape to be a gun. "Pause it there. Zoom in on his hand."

The hand magnifies and a squint as a syringe comes into focus.

My dad lets out a heavy breath. "What is it?"

I hum in response and reach towards the hologram, gently taking the syringe out of the frozen scene. I gently brush away the syringe itself, leaving me with a clear liquid that didn't seem harmful, but I knew better.

I draw my hands apart, magnifying in on the substance until my immediate area is crowed with holographic atoms, separated into two bigger molecules and one smaller one.

"So we've got two molecules of C15H10Cl2N2O2 over here…Ativan, or lorazepam," I explain at Darcy and Rhodey's confused look. "Anti-anxiety drug. And then we've got an N2O molecule over here, which is laughing gas." I glance at my dad. "Was Bruce taking either of these?"

He looks thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head. "No, he wasn't on anything. At all."

"You know, I'm not a genius," Darcy speaks up, and I turn around to see her standing at leaning against the table, "but from what I've heard, both of these drugs make you very happy. Which is the opposite of angry."

I beam at her. "That's brilliant."

"I do my best," she shrugs.

I glance back at my dad. "We're looking at the latest anti-Hulk attempt." I frown. "Thought we told him to stop making these?"

Dad shrugs. "He's a grown man, I suppose we can't truly forbid him."

Rhodey makes a sour face. "But if these are Hulk suppressants – which really should be locked up safely either here or the Tower – how did they end up in Rogers' hands?"

I stare at him for a moment before grabbing an abandoned tablet and quickly accessing the status of the R&D floors of the Tower.

"Both of our labs," I wave between my father and myself, "are locked down. But, ah, I, uh, may have forgotten Bruce's." I rub the back of my neck sheepishly before pulling up the vocal input system for the lockdown codes. "On voice authorization of Taylor Maria Stark, enact code Tango-Mike-Sierra-Zero-Five-Three-Zero-One-Nine-Nine-Nine. Level Armageddon."

The tablet beeps at me and the screen flashes with _CODE ACCEPTED. LOCKDOWN SUCCESSFUL_.

"Well at least they won't be getting their hands on any more of the serious drugs," I concede, leaning back in my chair and linking my hands behind my head.

My dad nods and leans forward, his forearms brace on the table. "So from there, they drag a now-sedated Bruce into the jet and take off, most likely for the Tower. Next question: how did they find us?"

"Did anyone send or receive anything lately?" Rhodey asks.

My dad and I shake our heads, but then something occurs to me and I turn to face Darcy. "Remember two days ago?"

She snorts. "Like I'd forget you having a panic attack anytime soon."

"You had a _panic attack_?" Dad asks, his voice an even mixture of shock and disbelief. "When was this?"

I make a dismissive gesture and keep my eyes on Darcy. "Just before that, you said you were sending an email. Who did you send it to?"

She opens her mouth to protest, but I just crank my glare up a level. "Come on."

"Fine," she lets out a long exhale. "It was to Jane."

"Why?" Dad asks.

"It…I…" she shifts uncomfortably, and I mentally start preparing for the net words that come out of her mouth. Did she betray us? Did Jane change her mind? Had Thor showed up? Wait, no, not that, I hadn't gotten any alerts, but my alerts could be wrong-

"She scared you," Darcy finally whispers, her moss-green eyes locked on mine.

I tilt my head curiously. "Come again?"

"Do you remember…" Darcy trails off and closes her. "Two days ago? The email?"

"Yes, we've been over this, panic attack, yadda, yadda, yadda." I wave a hand. "Not seeing the connection."

"The email was from Jane!" she exclaims, and I shut my jaw with a _click_. "She sent that email with the intent to make you feel horrible about making the _right choice_!"

"Darcy, I get wanting revenge," I placate, "really, I do, believe me. But by sending that email, on what was probably a secure line, from _here_ , meant that they could probably trace us."

Darcy bites her lip. "I just-"

I shake my head. "It's…it's alright. I need to see that email."

She nods and slides her phone across the table, the email already on the screen. I pick it up, tapping on the 'send to' list.

Rhodey, who had moved so that he was looking over my shoulder, sucks in a deep breath. "Darcy, you didn't _just_ send this to Jane."

"What?"

"Originally, Jane did send it to me, yes," I clarify, "but according to this it was also sent to Natasha for the same effect. You replied to Jane, and, in the process, Natasha."

"And Natasha Romanoff is no rookie at hunting people down," my dad points out.

Darcy bows her head and makes a choked sound. " _God…_ "

I get up to wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a gentle squeeze. "Hey, don't worry about it. You didn't know. And I swear to _god_ , Darcy Lewis, if you blame yourself one _iota_ , I will throw you off the roof." I threaten, grinning as the spark returns to Darcy's eyes. "Deal?"

"Deal," she nods, and I go back to my seat.

"Well," my dad begins again, "now that we've got that covered, we need to cover what to do from here." He glances around the table. "As of right now, this second, this war is no longer 'cold'. They took one of ours. We will retaliate. Until then, everyone make sure they're not too far from a teammate _at all times_. Nobody sleeps alone – not in the same _bed_ , Rhodey, don't look at me like that – but in the same room. Keep your weapons within reach 24/7. Taylor, I'll be helping you with Beta IV, we need that _now._ "

I nod. "I'll get on that."

"Are all of the threat statuses updated?" Rhodey asks.

I nod again. "Captain America, the Black Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier are all marked as Threat Level Alpha One. Thanks, Jarvis."

" _My pleasure, ma'am."_

"Thor hasn't shown up yet," I continue, "but I will be alerted the moment he does."

My dad nods. "Everyone, just keep doing what you were doing, but be on your toes. Rescue efforts to go get Bruce will begin shortly. Questions?"

There are none, so he continues with "Dismissed."

I get up to leave, but I'm halted by Darcy standing in my path. "If you're going to apologize-"

"I'm not," she cuts me off quietly. "I don't like the circumstances, or what led to them, but I _really_ don't feel like taking a swan dive off the roof, so I'll leave it alone." I nod. "But here's another thing: I also _really_ don't want to room with Tony or Rhodey."

I laugh. "Of course not. And you'll room with me, no, too late for objections, you're doing it. Plus," I grin evilly, "This means they have to room together. Payback is _sweet_."

"Payback for what?"

"I have nearly two decades to choose from," I shrug. "It could be anything, really."

She rolls her eyes at me and follows me out. On our way out, I gently finger the hilt of the knife on my hip.

This war may now be 'hot', and the first strike was taken, but we hadn't even seen a battle yet.

I had a feeling we were about to.


	10. Chapter 10

_Operation: Mean, Green, Rescuing Machine_ got started very quickly.

The compound was constantly busy: Dad was scanning news channels for any appearance of the Avengers (there were none) and helping Rhodey plan out a strike on the Tower, and Darcy had practically been stuck to my hip through the whole operation.

Currently the two of us were down in my lab; I was running a series of calibration tests on my arms and Darcy was taking another look at the projects Bruce had been working on at the time of our…departure.

"Taylor?"

I hum to signal I've heard her, not moving my eyes from the six-inch open panel on the underside of my right forearm, where I was messing with the very circuitry that gave me a right arm while it was still attached and clamped to the table with one clamp around my wrist and the other just below my elbow.

"Why did Bruce have Estrogen?"

I snap my head up. "What?"

"Look!" She swivels the glass screen and points at what she had been looking at.

I raise my eyebrows. "Yep, that's definitely estrogen. And enough to make the manliest of men squeal like a schoolgirl. I wonder why he had it."

Darcy tugs the monitor back over. "According to his notes, he was playing with hormone levels. Something about the Hulk and testosterone levels."

I consider this for a moment before turning back to my arm. "To quote the good doctor himself, 'that guy's brain is a bag full of cats.'"

I hear her snort from behind me as I tweak a few more wires, flick a switch, and then flip the panel closed, fastening a few screws. "Done. Okay, hand me that rod over there?"

Darcy hands me a metal rod, an inch and a half in diameter and about a foot long. I situate it in the clamps I had just been using, maneuvering so that I was sitting perpendicular to the bar as I wrap my metal hand around the middle. "Jarvis, begin Strength Aptitude Test number 15."

" _SAT15 recording, ma'am."_

I nod and brace my feet against the metal table, adjusting my grip before I lean back and pull with all my might, watching with satisfaction as the metal bends and groans under my hand.

After a minute, I let go, flopping back into my chair. "That went well."

"I'll say," Darcy drawls, staring at the bent rod with arched eyebrows. "It's like you're Superman all of a sudden."

"I was aiming for Winter Soldier, not Superman," I admit, "but I'll take it."

"What did you calibrate it to this time?" Darcy asks curiously.

"1.5% strength," I explain as I begin to clean up my desk slightly. "I'll probably leave it there – anymore and it's going be impossible to return to normal after this is all over."

"So…you're saying you'll go through withdrawal."

I roll my eyes. "I'm not on drugs."

"But you'd still go on withdrawal!" she insists. "You just listed the symptoms!"

I glance at her over my shoulder. "You know the symptoms of withdrawal?" I smirk. "Something you want to tell me?"

She scowls at me, and I'm suddenly very grateful that everything around her is heavy and not able to be thrown.

"As it is, I'm going to have to readjust my drawback strength," I sigh. "I wish I could build a new bow."

"You can't?"

"My dad's shifted all project priorities to the suit," I tell her. "He's moved it into his lab, though, so that's good."

"Take what you can get," Darcy advises. She then falls silent for a moment before, "Hey, you wanna go do something stupid?"

I side-eye her warily. "The last time you said that I ended up jumping fifty feet from a helicopter."

"That was all your idea!" she protests. "Australia was all your idea. Besides, that was a year and a half ago, will you let it go?"

"Nope," I smirk.

Darcy stares at me for another second before shaking her head. "Whatever. Do you want to go sit on the roof?"

"It's freezing outside," I whine.

"I know," she nods, "that's why it's stupid."

I sigh. "Fine, bring your tazer. I'm blaming you if I get frostbite."

Darcy beams at me and quickly leaves the lab to go retrieve her weapon. I grab an old leather jacket off one of the tables, shrugging it on before grabbing my bow and quiver, fastening them to my back just in case.

I step out onto the rooftop about ten minutes later, shivering slightly at the biting winds. I walk over to the central wing of the roof and take a seat on the edge, dangling my legs off the edge and kicking them as if I was in a tree, not very close to a twenty foot drop.

I had a spectacular view from up here: I could see the entire courtyard (which was really just a large, uncovered area where it was impossible to hide). The grass was still green, but there was a light coating of frost giving everything a cloudy white look.

I hear Darcy sit down next to me. "I don't know whether you're brave or stupid to enjoy sitting on the edge like this."

I shrug. "You get used to it. Archers are often perched at the very edge of a building."

"And if you fall?"

"Before…" I pause. "Hawkeye would usually catch me."

"Oh," she says quietly. "Okay. Hey, uh, I'm not very good at this whole touchy-feely thing, but do you want to, I dunno, talk about it or anything?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I bite out, mentally counting to 100 in Russian.

"You don't seem sure."

"No!" I snap. "We are storming Avengers Tower in less than 48 hours and I need to keep a clear head! So drop it, alright?"

She falls silent, and I cross my arms defensively. "Thank you."

And then the silence is broken by "Did you love him?"

I open my mouth to protest again. "Darcy-"

"I just want the truth for once," she sighs.

I let out a long sigh, watching my breath billow out in clouds before disappearing. "I would've thought that was obvious."

"It is," she admits, "but I've never heard you admit it outright."

I sigh and lean forward to brace my elbows on my knees. "I did," I sigh. "I loved him, dammit. He was my first boyfriend, did you know that?"

"I didn't."

"I suppose you wouldn't, you didn't know me back then," I muse. "He was, though, mainly because all the other guys in the world either wanted me for purely physical or financial reasons."

"And he was different because…?"

I side-eye her and snort. "Come on, Darcy, you've met the guy. Sure, he's a guy, but he's different. He was my best friend for three years before we started dating. And he's a superhero too, so he knows what it's like, kind of." I know I'm babbling now, but I don't care. "And, plus, that means I don't have to worry about keeping him safe. I mean I do, er, I did, but-"

I'm cut off by my phone buzzing and playing Black Sabbath's _Iron Man_ , and I hear Darcy mumble a quiet "Thank god," as I fish it out of my pocket. "Hey."

" _Hi. Where the hell are you?"_

"The roof. I'm armed."

" _Okay."_ I can hear my dad's breath slowing. _"Okay, good. Alright. Crisis averted. I need you down in the war room. And get Darcy."_

"She's with me. Why do you need us?" I ask. "What's going on?"

" _We've found a way in,"_ he explains. _"I have Beta IV here. We're setting out in two hours."_

And then there's a click. I glare at my phone screen, now silent and black. "Rude. That was rude."

Darcy looks over at me. "What's up?"

"We need to be in the War Room, pronto," I explain, getting up and heading towards the door to the roof access stairwell. "We're storming the tower in two hours."

She nods and follows me inside, down the stairs, and into the War Room.

I instantly beeline for Beta IV, which was standing stiff, tall, and imposing on a dolley. "It's finished?"

My dad nods. "Finished it this morning. I used your specs and notes, so if it blows up, I'm claiming plausible deniability."

"Thanks, Dad," I say, every word oozing sarcasm.

He gives me a cheeky grin before turning back to the table and pulling up a hologram of a very familiar building.

"Okay, so here's the deal…"

I'll admit that I drown out the rest of what he says - I can always ask for a last minute debrief on the flight there.

I was too busy staring at the hologram of the place I once called home.

In one hour forty-five minutes, I would be helping to lead an attack on my home.

In 105 minutes, I would be aiming at people I once called friends - almost family.

In 6,300 seconds, I would hopefully find Bruce - in whatever condition he was in.

In 6,300,000 milliseconds, I would probably be facing my ex-boyfriend down the shaft of an arrow.

It had only been a week since I left.


	11. Chapter 11

" _So what's the plan again?"_ I ask, my voice echoing in my helmet.

" _We've been over this_ ," Dad, who was flying ahead of me, sighs. _"You'll land on the roof, lock up your suit, and make your way to Bruce. I will be awaiting your signal for retrieval, and Rhodey will be outside to pick off stragglers. Nobody leaves until we find Bruce. You have the override codes?"_

" _The Alpha-codes, yes."_ I nod. _"And we're sure they'll work?"_

" _Jarvis will recognize you, trust me,"_ he reassures me _. "Base, what's our ETA?"_

" _Five minutes,"_ Darcy's voice announces.

I nod, mostly to myself, and fall silent as the tower comes into view.

" _Get in your positions,"_ Iron Man orders. _"Beta, go dark. Good luck."_

I make sure that Beta IV can't be detected before zooming ahead and landing on the roof without a sound. The metal around me immediately begins to pull back, and I step out onto the concrete in fill battle mode.

I was dressed in a form-fitting black jacket that Dad had designed based off my Sparrow specs, black pants that weren't loose but allowed for movement, my net gloves, and a pair of insolated boots that minimized the sound of my footsteps. I had my quiver slung over my back, my bow in collapsed mode against my lower back, one knife in each boot, and two guns and a third knife under my jacket.

I reach around to grab my bow, extending it with a quiet _zing._ "Moving in now," I whisper softly, the tiny comm in my ear registering my voice.

I quickly make my way towards the roof access vent, quietly popping the cover off and laying it to the side. I slide in legs first, managing the four foot drop with ease before grabbing the cover and re-attaching it from the inside. I sink into a modified army crawl and begin my planned route.

Forty-five minutes later (and right on schedule), I'm positioned above Radiation Lab 42, floor 34. I hadn't run into anyone on my trek, but that might be because I was able to stay exclusively to the vents. I had no doubt that they knew I was here, because the Tower was usually good like that, but I wasn't complaining much.

I peer down through the vent slats. _"I'm in position B, ready for retrieval,"_ I inform Darcy, simply for protocol purposes.

I make quick work of the cover, pulling it in beside me and setting it off to the side before sliding out and dropping into a blindingly white room.

Really, _really_ white. Nothing else.

"You know, you guys really could have been more creative with the decorations," I announce to seemingly nothing, but I'll bet my phone that there were either a) cameras watching me, or b) people behind the observation one-way mirror behind me.

You know, when we were designing the Tower, maybe we should have noticed how much our radiation labs looked like interrogation rooms. Hm.

I shake my head to clear it and hurry over to Bruce, whose prone figure was on one of the bunk beds that was attached to the wall, prison-style (because decontamination was never meant to be comfortable).

 _And, hey look, he's tied to the bed,_ I note, my ire for the _good Captain_ growing measurably. Really, what could Bruce do? Judging by his currently unconscious state, they also had him drugged, so seriously, what's with the ties?

I undo the bonds and manhandle Bruce into an awkward but mostly manageable position; noting, with a frown, that he was extremely light. _It's only been three days,_ I reflect, _what have they been giving him? Or rather,_ not _giving him?_

I drag Bruce to the extraction point (a window big enough to pass a person through), slowly and loudly – don't blame me, I was suddenly carrying what was probably around 175 pounds of dead weight.

" _Ready for extraction, Iron Man,"_ I pant quietly, _"I've got him."_

" _Roger that, Beta."_ There's a quiet _whoosh_ -ing sound before the red and gold metal suit appears out the window and gives me a thumbs up. I open the window and pass Bruce through, my dad holding him in a bridal carry that would have been embarrassing, had anyone been worried about dignity at the moment.

Iron Man nods, faceplate as serious as ever. _"Got him. Go, Beta, and be careful."_

" _I will,"_ I promise, shutting the window again and moving towards the nearest vent cover. I wait until Iron Man's flown away before re-entering the vent system and moving quickly back upwards towards the roof.

Just as I enter the second to last floor from the top, I get the distinct feeling that something isn't right.

A split second before something dents – and almost punctures – the sheet metal before the second and third fingers of my left hand. I recognize the shape of the dent; it's pointed, too pointed to be a bullet, and I didn't hear a shot, so that means Hawkeye is targeting me.

Which left me with two options.

A: I could sit here like the biggest sitting duck in the history of all sitting ducks.

or B: I could exit my safe vent network and give myself a decent chance to get out of this in one piece.

I decide to take B. I slide backwards a few feet, kicking out a vent cover and landing skillfully in a crouch before straightening up and drawing my bow.

Hawkeye is mere feet from me, at the end of the hallway with his bow drawn.

I fight to keep my face emotionless and my hands steady.

"Iron Beta." His voice is completely flat, but a little unsure.

I hesitate. "…Hawkeye."

I can see him studying me. "You seem…surprised."

 _Surprised…sure, let's go with that._ I give a small shrug. "Wasn't truly expecting anyone to show up."

He gives me a dubious look. "Rea- _lly_?"

I smirk. "Not my plan. I don't make the plans." _You know that._

He looks like he's fighting a smile. "I know."

We settle into a tense silence for a moment, and then it's broken by my comm buzzing.

" _Beta? Beta, come in, this is Base, where are you-"_

The other archer freezes, looking like a deer in headlights, and I catch what is unsaid (just like always) and reach up to switch off my earpiece.

This was a one-on-one fight. If he called for backup, I would do the same. If not, then we were alone in a hallway where there were conveniently no cameras.

I tilt my head slightly to get a better view, the feathers of my arrow tickling my cheek. "Why shouldn't I shoot you right now?" I ask him, and we both know that's an empty threat.

"Why shouldn't _I_ shoot _you_?" he counters.

I consider this for a moment. "You're not my goal here."

"And what is?"

 _Getting Bruce to safety. And possibly shooting Steve in the groin to prevent future generations of Capsicle-ness on the way._

"…Can't tell you that."

"That's to be expected," he replies flatly. "Although it is pretty obvious."

"It became obvious when you stole Hulk off our roof," I point out. "Action, reaction."

He nods sharply. "We're serious, then? We're really fighting now."

I blink. "Yes."

Hawkeye stares at me, grey eyes slicing me down to the core, before reaching back and replacing the arrow that's on his string before pulling it back and aiming low.

I tense – maybe he was going to shoot my leg or something so I couldn't escape? Was I going to be kidnapped?

No, apparently, because the arrow lodges itself in the floor between my feet and begins to hiss, releasing what looked like smoke.

I wasn't sure if it _was_ smoke – it could have easily been a poisoned gas – but the message is clear: _go. Escape._

I do. I turn and run.

He could have easily shot me, and I knew that. The fact that he didn't meant that next time…next time we met, there would be no stalemate. Next time, arrows would fly.

Next time…it was war.

There was not much room for anything else.


	12. MAJOR AUTHOR'S NOTE

**Major Author's note! Important!**

 **As of today, it has one year since I started writing my first book,** _ **Iron Beta: Life as Tony Stark's Daughter**_ **. One year.**

 **I would like to give a huge thank-you to every person that's ever reviewed, favorited, or followed any of my stories, because there's actually quite a lot of you and you have** _ **no idea**_ **how much I appreciate all of you.**

 **And now, a quick update.**

 _ **Iron Beta**_ **'verse (canon!Avengers):** _ **Dissension**_ **, the latest story in this verse, is coming along smoothly. I am accepting requests for one shots, please PM me if you have a request. And keep reviewing, following, etc.**

 _ **Saved by the Bell**_ **'verse (teacher AU Avengers): consider this verse on hiatus because my muse for that story died. Sorry for all of you that liked that story, but I am taking requests for other AUs as well. PM me or review with an AU idea.**

 _ **Whispers in the Dark**_ **(canon!Harry Potter): this should be getting updated fairly smoothly. The only problem I have with this is that fact that I am literally getting almost no reviews. Do you guys not like this? What's your stance? PLEASE TELL ME.**

 **If anyone has any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or the like, please PM me, review, or email me at ironsparrow99 [at symbol] gmail . com.**

 **Thanks,**

 **IronSparrow99.**


	13. Chapter 12

Even if Hawkeye and I had no conflict with each other, there was still Captain America (whom I wanted to punch in the teeth _so badly_ ), Black Widow, Falcon, and Winter Soldier to worry about.

I was hoping not to run into Barnes and that War Machine and Iron Man could take Wilson, which meant that I only needed to truly watch out for Romanoff.

And then I found myself cornered on the top floor of the Tower, curled up behind a minibar in a penthouse while I got shot at.

Truth be told, it was the most luxurious battlefield I had ever been on. It sure beat Afghanistan.

I notch another arrow, this one razor-tipped, and pull it back, waiting for another moment before pushing up to one knee and firing the arrow towards the couch, quickly hitting the ground again as bullets answer in return, chipping off granite countertops and pieces of wooden cabinets.

" _Beta?_ " Darcy calls in my ear. " _Where are you?_ "

"Top floor," I answer quietly. "I've got Widow engaged-" I pop up again to let off another arrow.

" _We need to leave, now_ ," Darcy orders. " _End the fight ASAP. Don't hold back, got it?_ "

"Aye, aye, cap'n." I flip over onto my side and pull out a barbed, razor arrow tip. It was a fairly new design, only about six months old and I knew it would deal major damage.

I fix it onto an arrow and notch it onto a string, pulling back and taking a deep breath before vaulting over the bar and taking a step towards the couch, letting my arrow fly before the redheaded spy can move.

The arrow rips into her thigh, and I watch as scarlet colors the surrounding area of her wound.

I froze for only one second.

One second is all Natasha Romanoff needs.

There's a flash of silver and despite everything I flinch and clamp my eyes shut on instinct, then squeezing them shut so hard it hurt as there's a sickening crunching sound, like brittle wood snapping, and pain erupts in my left hand, worse than anything I'd felt before. I drop to my knees, biting on a scream.

By the time I pry open my eyes again, Natasha's gone and all she left was a small bloodstain on the carpet.

Everything seems alright for a sight moment before I glance down at my hand.

I'm looking at a knife handle.

More precisely, a knife handle that's stabbed into something that's stained red and bleeding profusely, leaving a far bigger bloodstain than Natasha's thigh wound ever could.

My stomach lurches violently as I realize what's happened.

I have a knife _stuck_ in my _hand_ _holy crap there was a knife and blood and holy crapcrapcrapcrapcrap-_

" _Beta!"_ Darcy yells in my ear, tugging me halfway out of my pain-induced panic. _"Need you here yesterday! We need to move! The boys stole a Qunjet!"_

"Yeah-" I pant a few times and swallow thickly, unable to control the tremble in my voice as I discover that it's not really a good idea to move my left hand at all because the knife just cuts into something else and _I wonder if Natasha planned that?_

" _Beta?"_

Oh. Right.

"Yeah, hey." Another deep breath. "Uhm, Iron Man?"

" _Speaking,"_ he replies. _"Come on, what's taking so long?"_

"I – I'm hurt," I admit, quickly moving as fast as I could towards the nearest side hallway. "Bad."

I hear the sharp intake of air on the other end of the line, and when he speaks it sounds like he's forcibly keeping himself calm. _"Okay…okay, what happened?"_

I clench my teeth against the pain that was slowly multiplying in my hand, purposely not looking at the blood dripping off the tips of my fingers. "There's a knife stuck in my hand."

There's a long pause before he comes back on. _"Okay, where are you?"_

"Top floor, east side."

" _I'm coming to get you,"_ he announces. _"I'm putting Rhodey on – talk to him while he grabs your suit."_

"Sure thing," I agree hoarsely.

" _Taylor?"_ my godfather's voice comes over the comms, calm and soothing like a waterfall. _"Okay, so you said something about a knife."_

"Yeah, it's stuck in my hand," I explain, "but I really don't want to look at it right now Rhodey, and it hurts-"

" _Okay, alright, it's gonna be okay,"_ he soothes. _"I'd imagine it hurts, glowstick. But, hey, did you get Widow?"_

"Yeah," I rasp, my body starting to tremble with exhaustion and pain and blood loss. "Stuck her in the thigh. Rhodey – what do I do?"

" _Just wait_ , _"_ he pleads. _"Tony's coming. And_ _ **do not**_ _touch the knife; pulling it out know would mean you die from blood loss."_

"Got it," I nod shakily, my eyes following the slightly blurry red and gold shape outside the window. "Gotta go, the cavalry's here."

Dad wastes no time with opening the window this time, just ordering me to duck before blasting the window in, darting in to effortlessly scoop me into a bridal carry.

I can't see his expression because of the face mask, but I'd imagine that it isn't pretty. I'd also wager that the Black Widow just jumped up at least one spot on his _'List of People That Should Go Die In a Hole'._ Right below Clinton Francis Barton.

" _Hey kiddo,"_ his robotically synthesis voice says. _"You alright?"_

I give a breathy laugh. "Yes, totally, completely. Just fine."

" _It's going to be okay now,"_ he promises. _"You're going to be okay."_

I stare at his faceplate, looking at the lit eyes and remembering back to when I was like, three or so, and I actually believed – like I'd imagine most three year old girls do – that _Daddy_ could make it all better, there was nothing _Daddy_ couldn't do, and all it took was a few magic words.

That was before I learned that I was condemning upwards of 23,000 people with every bomb I built.

That was before my trusted godfather stabbed the both of us in the back.

That was before I became a superhero.

Before Loki. Before Natasha. Before Hawkeye.

Before I stopped kidding myself.

I give a weak shake of my head, spots swirling in my vision as my head spins. "You know, I don't think I will."

.

 **Sorry this was so short, but I didn't want to draw that out any longer. It was being stubborn.**

 **Thanks to TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, candycrum, and RussianAssassin for reviewing the last chapter, I really appreciate it.**


	14. Chapter 13

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

I give a low moan, the shrill beeping sound slowly pounding on my head. "J, turn I' off…"

The beeping sound lowers but doesn't go away completely.

"Taylor," a soft voice calls that is definitely _not_ Jarvis, "you awake, kiddo?"

I give another moan and try to roll over and snuggle deeper into my blankets, only to find that I can't move my left arm.

"Okay, now I _know_ you're awake," the voice says triumphantly. "Please stop moving."

I pause before giving up with a huff and cracking one eye open.

My dad, who is leaning over me, breaks into a relieved smile. "There you are. Morning, Sleeping Beauty."

I blink at him blearily. "…what?"

I watch as some new frown lines appear on my dad's chin. He sits down in the chair next to my bed. "How much do you remember?"

I close my eyes as the memories come flooding back. The mission, Hawkeye, Black Widow, the knife, the pain, the blood, the rescue-

I bolt upright with a start. "Bruce-"

"-is okay and resting in the living room," Dad assures me, gently grabbing my shoulders and pushing me back down to the bed. "You need to not move."

"Why?" I demand. "Please explain."

He sighs and rubs his face wearily. "You're in my room at the compound. It's been about twelve hours since we got back. And, oh, before I forget, I need you to promise me two things."

"Okay…" I agree hesitantly. I hated whenever someone made me promise something; I knew I would to my best not to break it, but if I did, the words _I promise_ made me hate myself all the more.

"One: please don't freak out. Two: promise me that I'll never have to preform surgery on you ever again."

I stare at him. "You tell me not to worry and then mention surgery - amateur surgery at that, because last I checked you are not a medical doctor."

Dad just purses his lips into a thin white line and leans forward in the chair. "You got stabbed in the hand."

"No _duh_ ," I deadpan with an eye-roll.

"Stop interrupting," Dad tells me sternly with a semi-gentle glare. "That stab wound broke some major bones and severed two major nerves, and on to of that, the little shattered bone pieces pinched more nerves."

I'm starting to worry at this, what with all the talk about nerves going on, but I stay silent, just like he wanted.

"Surgery took four hours and forty five minutes," Dad continues wearily, and suddenly he looks so much _older_ (doesn't everyone?). "Mainly because I had to piece it all back together. It was like is one of those jigsaw puzzles with, like, hundreds of pieces - those suckers are _hard_."

I recognize his attempt to bring a little levity into the situation with a crooked half-smile, but don't otherwise comment.

"But I digress," he sighs and hands me a StarkPad I hadn't noticed earlier. It's already powered on, I just have to tap it in order to pulls up medical files and diagrams depicting just how badly my hand got screwed up.

"Right now, your left forearm is wrapped in more bandages than the Mummy," he continues, even without my full attention. "It needs to stay that way for the next week and a half. If it does not," Dad adds as I begin to protest, "then you will permanently disable your hand. You will never regain a normal level of motor control."

I grimace and quickly nod. "I'll keep it on."

"I thought you would," he say, satisfied. "As it is, you'll have a slight tremor in that hand, and it'll ache under certain weather conditions."

"Like an old lady's bad hip," I muse. "Will the tremor cause problems?"

"You tell me," he shrugs, leaning back in the chair and giving me a calculating look.

I give a breathy sigh and don't meet his eyes, messing with the leather strap that was holding my arm down at the elbow. "I don't know. This is the hand that holds my bow, so if it starts shaking when the monster of the week is bearing down on me in Syria or where-the-hell-ever and I don't have my suit, I'll be in trouble."

"And you can't just stay in your suit like intended because…?"

"Because I never do as intended, bite your tongue," I chide. "And as much as I love my suit, the entire reason I branched out was for a backup plan, remember? And if that plan B isn't working anymore, then…" I trail off with a slight shrug.

"No one said you'll never shoot again," Dad reminds me. "It'll take a bit of work, and a lot of time, but maybe you can learn to suppress the tremble. I read up on this while you were sleeping - veterans with a similar problem report that adrenaline works like a charm to steady their hands. I mean, I'm not going to allow you to start injecting yourself with anything, let alone pure adrenaline, but maybe that'll help in the field."

"Am I still allowed out in the field?" I wonder aloud. "Just hear me out," I ask at his curious look. "I need you to be honest with me, as your deputy. Not your daughter."

"Taylor-"

I cut him off with a glare. "When you appointed me, did you or did you not ask me to keep you unbiased?"

"I did," he admits quietly.

"And did you not ask me to be honest with you, no matter what?"

"I did."

"Then all I ask is that you return that favor, because I need to know whether or not I'm going to be of any use to you whatsoever or if I need to go invest in some knitting needles because my life as I know it might be _over_!" I snarl.

My dad just held my eyes for a moment, and I felt my eyes sting as I slump back against my pillows.

"I'm sorry," I mumble, "I didn't...that didn't come out right."

"It's okay," Dad assures me, reach forward to squeeze my shoulder. "And, by the way, you'd suck at knitting."

I chuckle quietly as he withdraws his hand and straightens. "As your commander, honestly, I think you will make it back into the field...eventually. It'll be hard, and it might be a little painful. And keep in mind that this is all your choice - you can either take the easy road, and give up now, or you can take the hard way, and keep that hand from trembling."

I grin and use my free hand to tap out applause against the nightstand. "Good speech."

"Thank you," he laughs. "Are we done here? I think the seriousness is giving me gray hairs."

I roll my eyes. "Drama queen."

"Drama _king_ ," he corrects. "I am the _king_. Oh, and I almost forgot - your arm needs to be in a sling. Doctor's orders."

I sigh as he holds up a mass of fabric and string. "If I must."

Ten minutes later, my left arm is once again completely immobile, except for this time it's strapped against my chest, at what I will admit is a more comfortable angle.

My dad steps back with a look of extreme accomplishment on his face. "Now, I'm going to find Darcy and tell her you're awake. If I don't come back, she's killed me for not telling her sooner."

"Beware the taser," I deadpan as he leaves the room.

A few minutes later, the door opens again and a brown blur streaks through, latching on to my right side and babbling a mile a minute.

"Ohmygod Taylor! You're okay! Like, not dead! Alive! I was so worried! You should've seen the blood - I'm going to _kill_ Romanoff! Like, really! Girlfriends don't stab each other! At all! Like, that's - so - I can't even-"

"Darcy," I cut her off. "Breathe."

She takes a few deep breaths and steps back. "Okay...okay, I'm good." She takes the chair my dad had been sitting on before, turning it around and straddling it, crossing her arms over the back. "So. Hi."

"Hey."

Her eyes drift to my arm for a moment, and I watch emotion darker than I thought Darcy capable of flit across her face. "I will kill her."

"I'm pretty sure my dad wants that privilege first," I quip. "And besides, I shot at her too."

"Right," Darcy sighs. "Yeah. That's another thing - I'm supposed to get your report. You missed the post-mission debrief."

"Excuse me for getting stabbed," I snark with an exaggerated eye roll, which she mirrors before I lean back against my pillows and begin to recant the mission in detail, from beginning to end.

When I'm finished with Hawkeye part, Darcy chooses to interrupt. "Why didn't you shoot him?"

I sigh and fix my eyes on a spot just over her right ear. See, this is what I liked about Darcy - Rhodey would've told me to shoot the other archer and ream me out for not doing so. My dad would've told me to stand up for myself and shoot him or else he'd bust in there and laser the guy.

Thing was, they didn't get it.

Darcy did. And she just asked, perfectly calm, _why not?_

"I couldn't," I whisper. "I couldn't - and neither could he."

"The smoke arrow-"

"Was not shot _at_ me but _near_ me in order to give me a chance to escape," I explain. "I would've done the same."

"You do realize that probably wasn't the most...legal...of actions?" she asks.

I nod.

"Do you care?"

"No," I decide resolutely, "I don't. Because it'll only happen once. There's been lines drawn in the sand," I inform her. "Those lines are clear now. And they will not be crossed."

She drops the subject with a small nod and a bitter look on her face. "Any word from Thor?"

I reach over and grab the discarded StarkPad that I had been on earlier, opening up the Threat Assessments page. "No," I sigh, "he's still listed as...well, not here. I'm not sure where he is, but I don't think he's on Earth at the moment. Probably busy being a prince and stuff."

"Do you think he even knows what's going on?" Darcy asks.

I give a one-sided shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. I mean, doesn't he have that all-seeing guy, uh, what's-his-name…"

"Heimdall. What?" She defends at my questioning look. "I intern for the guy's girlfriend, Taylor, I've picked up a few names."

"And yet, you still call the hammer Mew-Mew," I deadpan. "Anyways, I don't know. If he's just oblivious, then...fine, but I wish he was here. If he _does_ now and if just being ignorant, then I'd like to have a few words when he finally drags his butt down here."

Darc giggles. "Hey, you know Thor - nothing gets his blood pumping like a good war."

I roll my eyes. "Still. We could really use him."

She shrugs and pokes the tablet. "Hey, got any games on here?"

I grab the tablet and tap a few things. "I've got a beta'd version of Rock em', Sock 'em robots, but with the suits. It's a new marketing thing. Not even out yet."

"I knew there was a reason I'm your friend," Darcy teases as I set the game up, a faintly blue hologram appearing above the device.

Directing a little holographic version of my suit is distracting, but not nearly enough.

My head still swam with thoughts of Widow and Hawkeye and Thor, my hand, and a million other things that were extremely relevant at this time but I didn't want to think about.

I knew I would have to. And soon.

But for now, Darcy's Mark XIV just punched me in the head.

I could work with the little distractions.


	15. Chapter 14

Nights at the compound – wherever we were, I had never bother to find out, and I doubt I could even if I wanted to – were, for lack of a better word, pretty. Not that I normally had much time to admire them, but now that I was stuck in recovery for the next week or so, I had all the time in the world.

It had been two days since the rescue. One and a half since I woke up and found my left hand heavily bandaged down to the middle of my forearm. It had stayed stiffly wrapped in a sling for the past 36 hours, which had taken some getting used to – I had a pad on my right shoulder because the strap had nearly rubbed the skin raw after a few hours, and I had to reduce the strength calibrations again because without my left hand to act as a counterbalance, everything felt off.

"Taylor?"

I jump and automatically reach for the gun that was holstered on my right hip, only relaxing once I see who the intruder is.

"Easy, kiddo." Dad holds up a plate of…Twinkies? (Yep, they're Twinkies) in one hand and two bottles of Coke in the other. "It's only me. I come in peace."

I relax against the cushions of the couch, eyeing the plate in his hands. "What are those?"

"Twinkies!" he announces, setting the plate down on the coffee table. "Come on, you remember them, right? You used to love them."

I give a small smile as I'm momentarily thrown back almost a decade and a half, when I was five or six and everything was simple and sweet and I was content in my own little world of sticky fingers and machine parts, before my life because the complicated mess it is now.

I give a small huff as I reach for one of the cakes. "Still do. What's the occasion?"

"Does there need to be one?" he asks as he sits in an armchair across from me and cracks open the bottles, sliding one across the table.

"There usually is," I point out around a mouthful of sponge cake.

Sadly, that was truth and we both knew it. What was the last time we did something together without there being an ulterior motive of either business or saving the world?

Probably – by my best memory – three years ago, when he taught me how to drive. And then I graduated college, stepping into my role as Vice President of Stark Industries, and soon enough, I was occupied with my new boyfriend and Loki was trying to take over the world again.

Dad frowns slightly. "Well…there isn't, now. I just wanted to spend time with you before everyone else woke up."

I raise an eyebrow slightly but don't comment, just shifting slightly on the couch.

"You know," Dad says after a moment, "I've never asked how you feel about all this."

"You want to talk about _feelings_?" I gasp. "Crap, the world really _is_ ending!"

He rolls his eyes at me before sobering again. "But really. How do you feel about all this?"

"All what? There's been a lot."

"This." He makes a wide gesture at the living room around us and, I'm assuming, the entirety of compound 394. "What the press is calling 'The Big Breach'."

I blink a few times before grinning. "The media needs to stay away from alliteration," I decide in a soft voice, "because it makes us all sound like whales."

Dad manages to stay serious for a second before bursting into laughter. " _Really?_ "

"What?" I defend, more humor in my voice than there had been in weeks. "They _do_!"

"Whatever you say, sweetheart."

I shake my head and lean forward to prop my chin on my good hand, feeling the slightly cool metal under my chin.

"How did you feel when Steel…my mother left you?" I ask suddenly, and the humor in the room flees faster than the rats on the _Titanic._

I refuse to meet my father's eyes, but I can feel them burning a hole in my head as he replies. "I…I was devastated," he admits, "for a while. Obi- _Stane_ had to take care of your for a few months after you were born because all I had managed to do was name you before I broke down at the sight of your eyes – _her_ eyes – and locked myself in the lab, alternating between drunkenly destroying things and drunkenly sobbing over the engagement that was supposed to be your mother's."

"What…" I nervously clench my hand. "What pulled you out of it?"

"Partly you, and partly your godfather," he admits quietly. "One night when you were about…oh, four months old? Yeah, four months, so that's the end of September, Rhodey barged into the lab – he used the Mother of All Overrides, and he just physically picks me up – not that I weighed much then – and drags me up a few floors, to where it turns out Obie had set up a nursery. It wasn't a good nursery, because Obie _sucked_ as a babysitter, he always did."

Dad shakes his head, as if to shake off an old memory, before continuing. "You were there, screaming your lungs out. This was a little past midnight, and it turns out that the only reason Rhodey was there was because Jarvis had called him, saying that you were screaming and something was wrong and I had muted him – Jarvis – just after I locked myself in the lab. And, given that your cries have always been the most sobering sound in the world, they snapped me out of it enough to start taking care of you."

He pauses, and I reach over to tap a staccato rhythm on his arm. "You don't have to tell me."

"Yes I do," he argues, voice heavy. "You were dirty, hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable, and just generally not a happy baby. That was enough to make me get it together, and by the next morning, I had cleaned you up, sobered up, and started moving your nursery to my floor."

I blink slowly, turning my head to meet his eyes. "So you got over the heartbreak because something else kept your focus."

"Right," he agrees.

 _You have something else too,_ a little voice reminds me, _fighting. Recovering._

I shake my head and sigh as I take a sip of my soda. "Do you have any regrets?"

"Yes," he answers, then pauses. "About what?"

"Letting me into this world." I draw the gun and carefully on the table between us. " _This_ world."

Dad barely glances at the gun (and isn't that sad?). "You mean do I ever regret letting you become Iron Beta?"

I nod silently.

"Sometimes," he admits. "I won't lie to you – when you lost your arm, when you got your reactor, when you got kidnapped – I was kicking myself for ever letting you build Beta I and follow me onto the battlefield."

He smiles before continuing. "But then I remember that you would've followed me anyways and, on top of that, you would've been pissed. And by letting you defend yourself, I gave you the tools to get out of those situations. So...as much as I _hate_ you being in trouble, and I sometimes wish that you were just a computer tech somewhere..." he trails off with a shrug.

I grin at him. "Yeah. I get it - plus, I think we both know I'd die of boredom if I had to answer the phone with 'Did you try turning it on and off again?'"

"Yeah," he laughs, "me too. See, this is why technology needs to be idiot-proof."

"But there's no such thing as idiot proof," I protest. "Those suckers are ingenious when it comes to screwing things up."

"They are," he agrees, nudging the plate of Twinkies at me. "Come on, these won't eat themselves. Especially since almost everyone else in this place is a health nut."

"I wonder if they know how many calories this job burns?" I snatch a cake off the plate. "How did you get these past Bruce?"

"Who says I did?" Dad smirks.

"Sneaky." I give him a mock salute with my Coke bottle. "Very sneaky."

He returns the salute and laughs, relaxing in the arm chair.

I watch in quiet curiosity as his masks all fade away, leaving a person only I – and I suspect my mother – ever got to see. There were no cameras here. No spotlight, no press, no fake smiles or 'no comments'.

"What?"

I blink to see Dad looking at me curiously. "What?" he asks again. "Do I have something on my face? Would you tell me if I did?"

I shake my head wordlessly, and he gets up, steps around the coffee table, and sits down next to me on the couch, throwing an arm around my shoulders, being careful to avoid the sling.

"You need some sleep," he advises. "Busy day tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that…"

"I get it," I sigh wearily, resting my head on his shoulder. He leans back and I shift down so that my ear rested just above the arc reactor. "You're warm," I murmur. "I think you radiate heat, did you know that? Like a big…" I'm interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn, "toaster."

I can feel, rather than hear, his laugh reverberate through his chest. "Only you, kiddo."

I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head, and I let my eyes all closed.

Tomorrow (or was it later today?), I knew, would only bring more chaos and heartbreak and ruin.

Tonight, surrounded by slightly-stale Twinkies and Coke bottles that had long since gone flat, I knew I was safe.

Safer than I had been in a long while.

* * *

 **Because every once in a while, an author needs to write a chapter that is so tooth-achingly sweet in makes you melt inside.**

 **This is kind of a filler, but I've been wanting to have that conversation on regrets for a while now.**

 **Tell me what you think!**


	16. Chapter 15

**Just a quick note: I've adopted RussianAssassin as my unofficial beta and you should totally go check her out, she's awesome and amazing.**

* * *

" _Darcy._ "

"No."

"But _Darcy_!"

"No."

" _Dar-_ "

"I said _no_ ," my roommate snaps, glaring at me over the cover of her magazine.

"But I'm bored!" I moan, rolling over so that I was lying perpendicular on my bed, Darcy sitting cross-legged on her own bed, across the room.

"Taylor, really," she sighs. "It's only been five days. Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable when you're bored?"

"Exactly!" I exclaim. "It's been five days. _Five_ whole days – that's 120 hours and 432,000 seconds – of not doing a single thing! I mean, why couldn't I be up in the command rooms? Or hacking something?"

Darcy rolls her eyes exasperatedly. "They went over this, remember? You're not needed upstairs right now, and even if you were, you could do your job from your laptop."

I huff at her. I realized her point, and I knew I was being annoying, but I couldn't help it – I was bored out of my mind, jittery, and on pain meds.

In short, recovery _sucked._

I moan again and flop onto my back, causing Darcy to throw a pillow at my face. "Hey! No hitting the invalid!"

"Well the _invalid_ was being annoying," she retorts. "And let's be clear here: I didn't hit you, I threw a pillow at you. Which hit you in the face, not the arm."

"Sure, let's split hairs," I drawl.

"Seriously, bolt bucket, just find a book or something."

I grumble at her for a minute before sitting up to do just that when I'm nearly deafened by a blaring Klaxon alarm and red light flashes in the room.

" _Attention, all Iron Legion members,"_ Jarvis announces urgently over the intercom system, _"the compound has been breached, I repeat, the compound has been breached. All Legion members are to report to their battle stations immediately. All Legion members-"_

I tune out the rest of the order, swearing hotly under my breath as I scramble off the bed and grab my jacket and my access key to the armory, which was on the second floor.

"Hey!" Darcy protests, running after me as I leave our room. "And what are _you_ doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I snap as we enter a stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time.

"You can't fight with a bad arm!" she argues.

"Watch me." I arrive in front of the armory door and swipe my card, impatiently waiting for the door to open before stepping inside.

I bypass my archery gear and head to the back wall, where Beta IV was in hibernation. The Mark XXVI, which normally occupied the space next to it, was already gone, as was the War Machine suit.

They were probably all out there right now.

"How are you even going to fly that with a sling?" Darcy asks dubiously, keeping an eye on the suit as I started it up.

"I'm not," I retort, stepping back and reaching around with my right hand to undo the buckle on the sling, letting it fall down and away, leaving my left arm free.

"Tony said-"

"I know," I sigh as I step towards the suit, reaching for the first release.

"Wait."

I turn back around to face Darcy, who was staring at me intently. "Let me fight too."

"What?" I ask incredulously. "No!"

Darcy glares at me, her hazel eyes flashing. "That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"

I stare at her for a moment before sighing and reaching down to unbuckle my hip holster, handing her my main gun, a Glock 17. "Be careful, and keep this on you _at all times_ , understood?" I order, using what Rhodey has come to call my 'deputy' voice. "Or else my dad might kill me even more than he is when I get back. Don't get hurt."

"Got it. And you be careful too. For the record, I don't think this is a good idea."

"Noted," I grin as I activate the suit, letting the metal encase me as the familiar holoscreen lights up. "Hello, Jarvis."

" _Hello, ma'am,"_ the AI sighs (if he could sigh) disapprovingly.

I just smile and fire up my thrusters, smashing through the windows on the other side of the room and out onto the battlefield.

Which is chaos.

For a force of ten people, total, the Avengers and the Iron Legion combined paint a very violent picture. Looking down at the compound beneath me, I could barely spot Captain America in bright blue; Black Widow was a little harder to spot, wearing all black, but her hair stood out like a sore thumb; Hawkeye was on the west wing of the roof, firing mainly up; the Winter Soldier was currently shooting at Iron Man, and War Machine and Falcon were dive bombing each other.

Nobody had spotted me yet.

So I decided to take the logical course of action: dive bomb the Winter Soldier.

I slam into him at about half speed, sending the ex-Soviet assassin rolling away from Iron Man, who was quickly gaining altitude.

" _Beta?"_ Dad's voice sounds over the comms, anger quickly replacing the confusion. _"Beta, what the hell?! Get back inside!"_

"Sorry, no can do," I quip. "I'm needed elsewhere."

" _Yes!"_ he agrees. _"Like_ _ **inside**_ _!"_

"I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one," I tell him calmly as I swoop around to the side of the building, looking for Darcy.

" _Taylor, get back inside, damn it all!"_ Dad orders, snapping at me viciously.

"It might be a little late for that now," I warn, "I think they've-" I'm cut off by the sharp _rat-tat-tat_ of machine gun fire and my eyes find someone just above me, "noticed me." I finish with a sigh before shooting straight up and slamming into Falcon's left wing, throwing him momentarily off balance.

I flip over onto my back, firing two sort repulsor blasts at his wings before taking off, forcing him to follow me as I steadily gain speed.

I lead him on a tangled path, cutting extremely close to the building at speeds pushing 200mph with him shooting at me and me returning fire.

I dive behind a tree as a few bullets ping off my suit, leaving only dents. More gunfire sounds from somewhere else, and suddenly Falcon is off my case.

I don't question that little miracle for long, instead shooting back up and staying close to the ground this time, looking for one person in particular.

My targeting system finds the Black Widow and I release a spray of tiny stinger missiles from a compartment on my shoulder. "That was for my hand, you _ona d'yavol_." I switch back onto the main comms. "How are we doing?"

" _Fairly well,"_ Rhodey reports evenly. _"We would be doing better had we known they were coming."_

"We really should have," I muse. "This is turning into the Cold War."

" _It's not very cold at the moment, Beta!"_

"No, no, not what I meant," I backpedal. "I meant the Cold War was all about action and retribution: we did something, and the Soviet Union reacted. It's the same way here – we act, they react, and then we act again."

" _Thanks for that history lesson, Professor Stark,"_ my godfather grumbles.

I roll my eyes and swoop down to kick Cap in the head, still wishing I could punch him where it hurt.

Except there's a slight problem: I can't move. I can still hear clear radio chatter, so it's not an EMP, but I can hear a high-pitched whine and _oh crap no-_

It's the thing Stane had used nearly six years ago to steal the reactor.

And the Avengers have it, and I'm about to fall – literally – into the hands of the enemy.

I crash to the ground behind the compound with a thud, and then my helmet is ripped off and a sweet smelling rag is pushed over my nose and mouth.

 _Chloroform,_ my brain supplies. _Not good._

 _No duh,_ I argue, and mentally roll my eyes before remembering that it's not good to respond to the voice in your head, and _does chloroform have mental effects? I should ask-_

And the temptation to breath becomes too much and with one breath the world fades to black.


	17. Chapter 16

When I came to, I was staring at…concrete. I could just barely make out a white blurry shape on the gray slab – an S, an H, an I, an E, an L, and a D. Shield?

No. SHIELD. Which made absolutely zero sense, because burned six months ago.

I needed to figure some stuff out.

 _First: was I hurt?_

Answer: no? I didn't think so. I couldn't feel any pain, but my head felt foggy and my thoughts were slightly muddled. _Most likely drugs,_ I conclude.

 _Okay, next: did I know where I was?_

Answer: no. I _did_ know that I was wherever SHIELD had once been, because SHIELD was a secret government organization and you don't just find their name just anywhere.

More specifically, I was lying down on something hard, and wherever I was almost pitch black.

 _Lastly, how did I get here?_

I think back to the last thing I remember, and it's like floodgates opened: I can remember the battle, my arm, Falcon, the paralytic device, and then the sweet scent of Chloroform, and then there's a blank spot before I woke up…wherever I currently was.

I try and sit up, but I soon find that's a bit hard because something rough – rope, most likely – was holding my wrists together. Tugging was no use, because if put any actual effort into it, shooting pains rocketed up my left arm.

I wince; not only out of pain, but because I remembered my dad's words about keeping my arm bound for the next week and a half.

" _If it does not,"_ he had said, _"then you will permanently disable your hand. You will never regain a normal level of motor control."_

Yeah. Oops.

I shake my head and refocus on figuring out where I was. After a bit of wiggling – because, as it turns out, my feet were bound too – I managed to get myself into an upright position leaning back against a wall.

I think I was sitting on something metal, but it felt rough, which meant it wasn't a lab table.

No human experimentation, then. That's always good.

A quick self-pat down revealed that I was wearing the t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers I woke up in this morning. Or…was it this morning? I didn't know how long I had been here, and that was a bit disconcerting.

Anyways, me still being in the same clothes meant my ex-teammates hadn't undressed me, which I was thankful for, because that would've been creepy. Especially since one of them was my ex-boyfriend and none of them had seen me naked.

I wasn't surprised to find myself weaponless, though, because the Avengers knew who I was and they, unfortunately, all knew where my weapons were kept. If I was being honest with myself, I probably would've done the same if I were them.

And that left only three questions: one, where was I? Two, how long had I been here? And three, how did I get out?

I'm jerked out of my introspection by the sound of footsteps nearby and coming closer, and I immediately tense up, which causes more pain in my arm.

I wince quietly as a voice sounds outside…wherever I was.

"Hello?" it whispers – first in English, then Russian. "Здравствуйте?"

I stay quiet – whoever that is (and it was either Barnes, Widow, or Hawkeye) probably wasn't speaking to me.

" _Sparrow_ ," the voice whispers sharply, still in Russian, and I perk up slightly. " _Answer me! Please!_ "

I hesitate slightly before reply, stubbornly in English. "Who are you?"

"Well I'm not Natasha and I'm not Clint. Now, you wanna let me in?" the voice hisses.

"I can't," I snap, "or have you forgotten that I'm a bit tied up right now?"

The voice mutters something before there's a rustling sound and suddenly I'm blinded by a beam of light – a flashlight beam. I hiss in pain, awkwardly shielding my eyes.

"Sorry, sorry," the voice mumbles, and the beam lowers and I'm left blinking at a slightly familiar face, but not one I expected by any means.

"James Buchanan Barnes," I whisper. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Well, first off, I prefer Bucky," he says flippantly. "And I know."

"Come to gloat, _Bucky_?" I ask him calmly, defiantly looking him straight in the eye.

"No," he shakes his head. "I'm on a mission."

And it's true – as he shifts the flashlight a bit, I can see the tactical gear I remember from the rare footage of HYDRA's 'The Asset' before Steve found him a little over a year ago.

He's wearing the one-armed black tactical vest, matching pants, and I can see the shadow of weapons on the wall behind him. The only difference now is that he's without the mask and dramatic eye makeup and his hair (slightly shorter than it was in the footage) is tied back in a short ponytail.

"Okay," I agree, "and your mission is…?"

"Extremely under the radar," he admits. "It's called getting _you_ out of _here_ alive."

I arch an eyebrow at him, but he shakes his head. "Later. Now, about your wrists…" He produces a large butterfly knife from somewhere.

I give the knife a cautious look. "I don't suppose you have scissors?"

"Would it help if I did?" he retorts.

"Given that you could stab me with those too, no," I sigh. "Just…let me see the knife please."

I know that I'm being far too trusting of a practical stranger, but he was currently my only way out and the way I saw it, I could probably fight my way out if needed – yes, he was HYDRA trained, but _my_ mentor in hand-to-hand survived the Red Room.

Barnes crouches down and carefully cuts the top side of the ropes binding my wrists, making sure that I can see the knife blade at all times. Once the ropes fall away and I shake my arms out (my left arm is still tingling, I ignore it), I nod and he repeats the process with my feet.

Once I'm completely free, Barnes stands again. "Do you trust me now?"

I nod carefully. "A bit. Now, I need answers."

"One more thing." He grabs something off his back and holds it out. "Can't leave you weaponless, now can I?"

I raise an eyebrow at the militarized AK-47 that he was holding, but take it without comment. It wasn't a bow and quiver, but I knew how to use it, and it was certainly better than nothing.

He also passes me another flashlight, and then we begin to make our way out of this place.

"So you've got questions, I assume?" he asks, slightly rhetorically.

I nod. "Where are we?"

"A disused SHIELD Hellicarrier," he reveals. "Off the Eastern seaboard. Specifically, this is one of the detention units."

"Fitting," I muse, nodding to myself. "Okay, how long has it been since the battle at the compound?"

"Right, they kept you sedated. Four days," he glances over at me. "Happy New Year's, by the way."

"I'm not kissing you," I snort.

"Wasn't gonna ask," he grumbles, but there's no real heat to it. "January 1st, 2020."

I hum a conformation as we begin to climb the steps out of the detention level and onto the main Hellicarrier itself.

"Why are you helping me?" I whisper, my quiet voice amplified by the empty space around us.

"Because what Steve and his people are doing is wrong," he answers simply, "and lives have been lost because of it."

I glance over at him but decide to hold off on the interrogation until we can get back to base. "Where are we going?"

"Right now, I was kinda planning on the bridge," he admits. "It's deserted; everyone's in bed. We can figure out an escape plan from there."

"Sounds good," I nod, waving ahead of me. "Lead the way, Barnes."

" _Bucky_ ," he sighs, "call me _Bucky._ "

" _Fine_ ," I give an exaggerated eye roll. "Lead the way, _Bucky._ "

* * *

We set an easy pace; not running, but not moving slowly by any means.

"So, just so I know before we get to the bridge, is there any way off this thing?" I ask offhandedly.

"Ah…" my companion shifts his weight uneasily. "No."

I freeze for a moment before rounding on him, stepping right up into his personal space. "Are you telling me that I'm standing in the middle of enemy territory, almost weaponless, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with a man that may or may not be on my side…and you don't have a way out?"

He backs away slowly, eyeing me warily. "I can see why Hawkeye warned us not to get on your bad side. Jeez, kid."

I roll my eyes at him as we continue walking. "Don't call me kid. Chronologically, you're only about four years older than I am."*

"But if you factor in the seventy-odd years in between, I'm, like, 93, I think. Which makes me…almost 75 years older than you. Which means I can call you kid all I want."

"Whatever, gramps."

"Kid."

" _Gramps._ "

"Don't call me th – _oh._ "

I give him a smug smile as I trot ahead. "Where are we?"

"Almost there," he reports. "I think we're in an old storage room at the moment."

Silence falls again until we find ourselves standing outside a pair of wide double doors.

"Well…we're here," Barnes – _Bucky_ – points out, quite unnecessarily.

I give him a dry look. "No, _really_? Where's the keypad?"

He points over at the wall behind me, and I bend down to inspect the keypad before motioning for him to come over. "Do you have a knife you wouldn't mind seeing destroyed?"

He nods. "Um, yeah. Why do I have a feeling I'm going to regret this?"

I blatantly ignore his question. "I need a knife. Thin, pointed blade, thick handle."

He hands over a small blade that fits the description and I use it to pry off the cover of the keypad, revealing a mass of wires and circuitry beneath. I analyze it for a moment before nodding. "Okay, just give me a second, this'll be a piece of cake."

He nods and steps back to stand guard and I hear the click of a loaded weapon as I sink to one knee, putting me at eye level with the keypad.

Five minutes later, by my best estimate, I've got the keyboard cracked, but only after a few spark showers and a blaring alarm that was quickly silenced. And I had to do it mainly one-handed, because I didn't want to risk any more damage to my already injured hand, which had also gone numb a while ago.

"Alright." I stand and brush my pants off. "We're in."

Bucky moves to shove open one of the cast-iron metal doors. "After you, milady."

"Thank you, good sir," I mock as I step into the main area of the bridge, where the Avengers had all met for the first time seven, almost eight, years ago.

I found it more than slightly ironic that I was now hacking into it so I could escape imprisonment.

I trot over to one of the computers, waking it up and quickly beginning to push my way into the system.

After about five minutes of typing – the desktop clock reads 4:30 AM – a window pops up.

 _Passcode?_ it reads.

I hesitate for a moment before placing my fingers on the keyboard.

 _5cR3w_y0u_pHuRy_ , I type, slightly amused at the code. My dad had designed it that way years before, and no one had wanted to change it.

I give myself a mental pat on the back as the computer accepts the passcode, and I quickly pull up a diagram of the ship we were on. "Bucky, c'mere."

He trots over and joins me in staring at the map. "Okay. Cool. Now what?"

"We're looking for planes…" I murmur, mainly to myself. "So let's try the flight deck."

"Right, because that's not extremely obvious," Bucky says from behind me. "Hey, maybe the planes are on the freaking flight deck."

"Пошел на хуй," I mutter, and we both know _exactly_ what that means.

"Watch your language, kid," he mocks, in a decent impression of Cap.

I reach over to whack him upside the head without even looking up from the monitor, ignoring his indignant protest.

"Flight deck, then." I stand and quickly exit the computer system, leaving no trace that I had been there, before grabbing the rifle from where I had dropped it and walking off. "It's just out here."

Bucky follows obediently, and we quickly make it out onto the wide, asphalt-covered expanse that was the flight deck, a dark, moonless sky and a cool sea breeze greeting us.

Instead of the rows of jets like SHIELD had once had, there is now a single jet, parked there quite pathetically.

"Seriously?" I laugh quietly as we dash across the deck. " _One_ jet?"

"Well you did steal one," he points out. "And you burnt a hole in this one and damaged the mirroring system."

I shrug as I crawl underneath the belly of the plane, finding the secondary hatch and quickly picking the lock.

Once I'm in the Quinjet itself, I glance up at the burnt hole in the roof. "You could've at least fixed this one."

Bucky shrugs as he climbs in behind me, closing the hatch. "Not enough time. Who's flying?"

"Do you know how?" I ask hopefully.

He shakes his head. "One of the things they never taught me." We both know 'they' is HYDRA. "That, and whistling."

I laugh. "I can teach you that," I offer, "that is, if you're planning on sticking around?"

"Well I'm probably not gonna be welcomed back here when they wake up and find us gone, so…"

I nod and make my way into the cockpit, quickly checking over what still worked and what didn't.

Thankfully, autopilot was still intact, so I set a course to about one hundred miles outside Providence. "Bucky," I call back, "we've got parachutes, right? At least two?"

"Yeah," he replies, "I already checked."

I nod and key in the course, pressing the big bed button marked START (obvious, much?). The jet lifts into flight, and I take a deep breath.

I was out of captivity. But I wasn't – _we weren't_ – out of the woods yet.

* * *

 *** = I've changed Steve and Bucky's ages a bit. In the comics, Steve is said said to be born in 1920, which would make him about 23 when he crashes in 1943. Bucky was born in 1917, making him 26 in 1943.**

 **I've changed it so that they were both born in 1927, making them 16 in 1943 (they lied about their age to enlist) which, excluding the time jump, would make them both about 24 in 2020.**


	18. Chapter 17

**Hello there, sorry for the late update, I didn't have reliable Wi-Fi to upload for the past four days. And please excuse any spelling errors – this was done on a tablet, not my computer like normal.**

* * *

I make my way back to the cabin of the plane, where Bucky was seated on one of the benches and sharpening a knife.

"We've got about an hour and a half flight ahead of us," I report, moving to grab the two handguns that were stored under the seats and holster them. "You can have your rifle back now."

"Thanks." He reaches over and grabs it off my seat, leaving the bench free for me to sit down across from him. "Is autopilot flying the plane or do you want to kill us?"

"As tempting as that is...no. Autopilot will drop us off somewhere outside of Providence."

"So I'm not allowed to know the location of your 'super-secret hideout'?" Bucky drawls, liberally using finger quotes.

"I don't even know exactly where it is," I shrug. "I expect my dad does-" I break off into a string of colorful word, transitioning from Spanish to German to Russian to French. "My _dad_."

Bucky gives me a confused look. "What?"

"I...sorta snuck out against a direct order and with an injured arm," I explain sheepishly, and Bucky's face becomes disapproving. "Don't give me that," I snap irritably. "What would you have done?"

He grumps and gripes and eventually concedes my point.

"So I'd imagine my dad's pretty pissed off at me right now," I continue with a sigh. "This'll be worse than the time I crashed his million dollar car - don't ask."

He holds up his hands in surrender. "Some things are better left unsaid. But don't worry," he continues patronizingly, "I'll protect you."

"Thank you, Oh Valiant Knight," I reply, mirroring his tone.

"Well at least you have an hour and...twenty minutes now to think up an excuse."

I sigh and slump back in my seat, idly playing with the laces on my shoes.

"Clint talked about you a lot," Bucky suddenly blurts out, and I snap up to meet his eyes as he blushes - actually _blushes_ \- and continues under my stare. "He, uh, wouldn't shut up about you."

I shift nervously. "Like 'oh-my-god-my-ex-is-horrible' wouldn't shut up or bragging wouldn't shut up?" I ask curiously.

"Oh, no, he was definitely bragging. Like, 'you know Taylor could've done this,' or 'did I tell you about the time Taylor did etcetera'," Bucky pauses slightly before glancing at me. "He's really beating himself up over this. I don't blame him."

I frown at that new tidbit before tilting my head curiously. "You aren't hitting on me, right?"

Bucky bursts into laughter, and I give him an odd look. "No offense," he gasps, "but no, trust me, no."

"Not to sound full of myself, but why not?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I wouldn't do that to you. Plus, I've got my eye on...someone. You're not my type, sorry."

I shrug. "Eh, I've heard worse. So...just out of curiosity...what _is_ your type?" I grin. "Or should I say _who_?"

My companion stares at me for a moment before announcing "Blondes," and then his tone makes no room for further discussion.

I contemplate this for a moment before shaking my head. "Do you have your phone on you?"

He hands me his cellphone, and I quickly check the time - _ETA of forty-five minutes_ \- and set an alarm for ten minutes before the end of the flight before handing it back. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," he nods. "Hey, you might want to get some sleep before we get...wherever we're going. I'll keep watch?"

I give him a calculating look for a second before deeming him trustworthy enough and nodding. "Just don't kill me in my sleep or I'll throw you out the hole I made."

He nods and I tip my head back, letting myself drift into a state of half-consciousness.

* * *

I'm awoken by a high-pitched beeping sound and a bewildered assassin staring at me.

I roll over and grab Bucky's phone, quieting the alarm before tossing it back at him and getting up, rummaging under the seat for a parachute. "Get moving," I order Bucky sharply. "We've got ten minutes."

I hear him start to clean up and gather everything. "Ten minutes until what, exactly?"

I glance up at him. "Ten minutes until this plane self-destructs completely. With or without us in it."

A moment of silence, and then, "Oh. Well. Thanks for supplying this information earlier, genius."

I shrug and grunt as I heft the parachute onto my back, buckling a few of the straps. "T-minus eight minutes," I announce as I amble into the cockpit. "Stand back, I'm opening the ramp up."

"Standing back," Bucky confirms, and I punch the 'lower ramp' button.

The sound of rushing air fills the cabin behind me, and I mentally pat myself on the back for not disabling the ramp when I shot at the jet. "T-minus seven minutes!" I shout over the wind, buckling the last few straps on the parachute.

I meet Bucky in the middle of the cabin, grabbing onto a support beam to hold myself inside the plane. "On my mark!"

He nods, and I mentally count down from five - because out loud wouldn't have done much good - before nodding. "Jump!" I order.

He nods and then we're both free falling, and I'm making an effort to keep from tumbling while my brain is on overdrive, calculating the height that I had to fall ( _40,000 feet_ ), the mass of the falling object ( _125 pounds_ ), and the time I had until I hit the ground ( _another 50.28 seconds_ ). Bucky and I deploy our chutes at the same time, and I wince as my injured shoulder is jarred sharply upwards.

I hit the ground with little grace, scowling as Bucky drops into a smooth commando roll and popping back up, completely unharmed. "Show off."

He just gives me an insufferable grin as he begins to unbuckle his now unraveled parachute.

I swipe his phone, using it to hack into my own phone, which I knew was at the compound, and determine how far away we were.

"We're only about two miles west of where we need to be," I tell him, tossing back his phone and beginning to shed my own parachute. "Oh, and that's not going to work in a few seconds. Jarvis still sees you as a threat. Watch out for...pretty much everything."

I snigger as the assassin behind me groans as we jog through the jungle. I knew we were making more noise than a herd of stampeding elephants, but the way I saw it, Jarvis already knew we were coming and there was no one else around to hear the screams if the AI shot us.

The familiar gates of the compound come into view, and relief floods me as I hold up a hand to stop Bucky.

"What-"

"Just wait," I assure him; and, sure enough, four figures come racing out from the compound, heading straight for us.

Battle-ready, apparently, because Rhodey has a gun, Darcy's got her tazer, Bruce's skin is slightly green, and my dad has the full Mark XXV on, minus the helmet.

I put my hands up in what was probably unnecessary surrender, mentioning for Bucky to do the same. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot me," I call. "Or him. He's with me."

"What was your favorite Disney princess until 2008?" Dad asks.

I nod, recognizing the seemingly random question as a way to identify me as me and not a brainwashed or hostage version of me. "Mulan," I answer calmly.

"Why do you not like her anymore?"

"I found the similarities between her and myself a bit too ironic."

"And who's your favorite now? Why?"

"Flynn Rider because he just is."

Dad nods, a relieved look flashing on his face before it's replaced by a stony mask as he looks over my shoulder. "Look what the cat dragged in."

I step to the side and glance between Bucky and my dad before fixing my dad with DEFCON 1 puppy-dog eyes. "Can we keep him? _Please_?"

Dad, of course, ignores me, turning sharply on his heel and storming back inside. Instead, Bruce approaches me, face neutral as he simply grabs me around the waist and manhandles me into the compound.

"Hey!" I protest. "Quit abusing the merchandise!"

"I can abuse the merchandise all I want when the owner of said merchandise has done much worse in the past week," Bruce retorts as he drags me into a spare bedroom that has been turned into mini-infirmary and sets me on the bed. "Your dad's still mad, by the way," he reveals as he checks a few monitors.

"No, I had no idea," I retort under my breath, resigned to waiting patiently as Bruce drags a machine over.

"This'll take a localized MRI of your hand," he explains as he sets us the device, placing my left hand - which now lacked any feeling whatsoever - onto a platform which reminded me of a fingerprint scanner. He closes the top half of the machine over my hand and presses a button, causing the machine to start humming and vibrating. "How does the hand feel?"

"It doesn't," I report. "The last bit of feeling I had was when my shoulder got yanked up by the parachute."

Bruce doesn't question what I was doing with a parachute, instead just thoughtfully frowning. "That's not good, obviously. With the existing nerve damage, you-"

He's interrupted by a shrill beep, causing both of us to look over at a monitor. "Ah, the MRI's done," Bruce reports, tapping on a few things on a monitor. He studies something for a long moment, and I watch his frown lines deepen worryingly before the physicist turns back to me. "Guess what?"

"What?" I ask nervously, not really wanting the answer but needing it at the same time.

"We need to do surgery again," he reports with a heavy sigh, taking his glasses off to rub them in the hem of his shirt. "There's no other option."

"At least you're more medically trained then my dad," I offer hopefully.

Bruce gives me a rueful smirk. "The 'Doctor' doesn't stand for M.D. and you know it." He wheels a machine over that looks slightly like a fire extinguisher. "Anesthetic," he explains at my curious look, holding up what looked like an oxygen mask. "It'll hold you under for a few hours."

I nod and lay back on the bed as instructed, meeting Bruce's eyes as he slips the mask over my mouth and nose. The message is clear: _I'm trusting you. Don't screw up._

"See you on the other side, Beta," he whispers before there's a hiss of air - or gas, I'd assume - that carries me into dark oblivion.

* * *

 **Thanks to AlisonWest, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, RussianAssassin, and candycrum for reviewing the last chapter.**

 **And speaking of reviews, this story is going to set my all-time record for reviews ever! Thanks a bunch, guys!**


	19. Chapter 18

_I need to stop waking up like this,_ was my first thought as consciousness crawled back in at a snail's pace. My second thought was _well at least it feels better this time. Kind of._

The memories all come rushing back at once: escaping the Hellicarrier, the flight back, parachuting out, getting back to compound, Bruce dragging me in, and a warm pair of brown eyes - Bruce's - as I got knocked out. For the third time this week.

I can hear a soft moaning sound that I realize is coming from me, and then a rustling sound on my left side.

"Taylor?" a voice calls gently, "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, Bruce," I grunt softly, still not opening my eyes, "and you're giving me a headache."

"That's to be expected," he explains, and I wince at the prick in my upper left arm. "I've just given you something to combat that. I've also turned the lights dim - can you open your eyes now?"

I blearily crack one eye open and then the other, blinking a few times to let everything come into focus. My eyes settle on the scientist not-a-Doctor standing at the foot of my bed.

"Good morning," he greets cheerfully, and I give him a small, tired smile. "How are you feeling?"

I consider his question for a moment before giving an indifferent grunt. "Slightly groggy. My hand is cold and a bit stiff. My headache's getting better, though."

"Yeah, I gave you something for that," he explains, pointing towards an IV line that was inserted in my upper arm. "Along with some anti-nausea melds because anesthesia has been known to induce nausea."

He reaches over and grabs a StarkPad off a side table and hands it to me, and I take it with a grim smile. "How bad is it, doc? How long do I have?"

Bruce rolls his eyes at me and powers up the tablet, showing a split screen with two 3D models of what I assumed was my hand.

"This one," Bruce continues, pointing at the left model, "was your hand before surgery. Thanks to your idiotic decision to magically cut your recovery time in half, the nerve was not fully connected and liable to fail at any time. It's like," he tilts his head, looking for an analogy, "it's like a plug that's only half in the socket. Sure, it may look like it's giving power, but that's a fragile connection until the plug gets fully pushed in, which is why the sling was there. By taking the sling off, you essentially yanked out that plug and cut power to your hand, which is why it went numb."

I nod, following along with his analogy better than the actual words. "And you did what, exactly?"

"This." Bruce jabs a finger at the other model, and I take in the new silver components in the structure of my hand.

The physicist pulls up a chair and settles in for what seems like a long, heavy discussion, and I mentally brace myself.

"I'll be honest with you, Taylor," he starts, "this was a complicated procedure that I hadn't done before and probably won't do again. I literally had to sew your hand back together with a thin, ductile wire, line your nerves with that same wire to prevent further breaks, then covering your whole palm with a wire mesh. The only reason your hand works right now is because metal conducts electricity, and therefore nervous signals. The mesh is literally holding everything together."

"Bruce, what does this mean long-term?" I interrupt, my eyes fixed on the model.

"Well you shouldn't have a tremor anymore, that's good news," Bruce offers hopefully. "But you will get severe cramping with weather changes, because..."

"Metal expands and contracts when temperature changes," I supply easily. "So...when it warms up in about two months, my hand will start seizing up?" I ask, and he nods. "What can I take for that?"

"Just whatever you normally take for muscle cramps," he comments offhandedly, and I give him a blank look.

Bruce sighs and tries again. "You know...when..." The blank look persists, and he finally throws his arms up in exasperation. "Taylor! When _else_ would a woman get cramps?"

 _Oh._ I quickly nod. "Yeah. Well then...that was awkward."

"Yes! It was!" Bruce exclaims. " _Anyways_ , you can just take whatever you take for...that. I also recommend a localized heating pad; no, they don't exist, yes, I already looked. I figure you can create a heated glove after Tony lets you back into the labs."

"What?" I blink as my brain catches up to the last sentence. "Wait, what?"

Bruce gives me a deer-in-the-headlights look, the perfect picture of the absent-minded professor. "Oh, did I not explain - I guess I didn't. Yeah, your dad's understandably furious with you. It's about nine thirty in the morning, and you've been home about four hours. In those four hours, Tony has locked up all of your suits, rescinded your armory key, and disabled almost every single access code you've ever had. I think he said something to the tune of 'If I can't trust her to act responsibly, she won't be treated as such'."

I sigh and slump my shoulders.

"You really did bring this upon yourself," Bruce points out.

I glare up at him. "Has anyone told you that you radiate 'disapproving uncle' sometimes?"

"Only you."

"Seriously, Bruce, what would you have done?" I reason, but the scientist just shrugs.

"Don't drag me into this, I'm a neutral third party. Now, speaking of acting responsibly, look what I got you!" He holds up a mess of straps and Velcro, and unfolds it to show a two-sided sling, the straps going over the shoulders like an introverted backpack, leading to a buckle in the back.

Staring at it, I realize one important factor: I can't get into our out of that sling myself.

"Bruce, _really_?" I whine, not caring if I sound like I'm five.

"Yes, really," he informs me all-too-cheerfully. "It's necessary."

"But _Bruce_..." I groan. "Come on, I'll be careful, promise!"

He raises an eyebrow. "And I'm supposed to trust you saying that after knowing you for nearly six years? Don't make me sedate you."

I groan. "Come on, scout's honor!"

"That only works if you were a Girl Scout," he reminds me, "and I know _for a fact_ that you never went within five feet of a Girl Scout uniform. Don't make me put you on Oxycodone," he threatens.

"Bruce, no, you know those make me loopy as hell!" I protest, and he raises an eyebrow as if to say 'so?'

"I'll call Betty?" I try in a last ditch effort at salvation.

"No, you won't," Bruce shakes his head, "and you know she'd both agree with me and give you a lecture to remember for getting yourself in this mess to begin with."

I look for any more openings, but eventually resign myself to my fate and go limp as Bruce maneuvers my left, bandaged, arm into the sling and makes sure it's snug enough before pulling the rest of the sling/harness on and fastening it between my shoulder blades - _right where I can't reach._

"There you go," Bruce finishes, patting my right arm comfortingly. "It's not that bad. Come and see me if the straps rub, though. Oh, and speaking of seeing me, you've got physical therapy in here at one pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays."

With that, he walks out of the room, leaving me scowling after him.

"You take pleasure in other people's pain!" I holler after him.

"I should hope I don't," another voice says behind me. "Or at least you don't think I do."

I pause and slowly look over my shoulder. "Ah...hey?"

Dad walks past me and leans against the counter across from the bed. "Well."

"Well?" I repeat. "What does 'well' mean here?"

"It _means..._ I cannot _believe_ you! Of all the foolish, rash, impulsive, idiotic, and borderline _suicidal_ things for you to do, you chose to _directly_ disobey me, not only as your father but your _commander_ too, and get yourself _kidnapped_. Then, instead of immediately establishing contact and asking for rescue - and don't tell me, you couldn't, either - you decide that, _hey_ , it'd be an _amazing_ idea to team up with the _enemy_! The _Winter Soldier_ of all people! The guy that was _brainwashed_ for over _seven decades!_ You decide to trust _him_ with your back! So then, after _that_ whole mess, you find your way out, _still_ not asking for help, and take him _here_ with you - what if he had a mic on him, hm? What if he'd just been winning you over so he could gain our deepest, darkest secrets? What then? You would've had the _entire_ Legion's death on _your_ shoulders!"

He pauses to take a deep breath, chest heaving, and pinch the bridge of his nose. "Luckily for you, he wasn't wired - I just spent four hours in interrogation with him and Rhodey. Barnes really does seem genuine, and thank Thor for that, or else you'd be in deep trouble, missy. He won't open up to us, though, so whatever the hell you did was magical. But the point still stands - genuine or not, you brought an enemy here, and I thought we had trained you better than that. Hell, I _know_ I did."

Dad sighs and rubs at his face. "So here's what's going to happen," he continues, adopting his 'I am your father and you are the child and you will obey whatever I say next _or else_ ' tone, which I have always dreaded. "As I'm sure Bruce has told you, I've confiscated both Beta III and IV, along with your bow and quiver, all of which are safely in my lab, which you can't access because I've taken your keycard and all of your codes. You also can't get into your lab, and you won't be able to until I _personally_ see you cleared for light duty, and even then you won't be in there alone. And don't even _think_ of seeing a battlefield until I personally see your field clearance paperwork _directly_ from Bruce himself."

"And as for Barnes," he sighs. "He's entirely your problem now. _You_ will train him, deal with whatever issues he might have, and keep tabs on him at all times. Literally, I suggest you stick him with a tracker. You will be held directly accountable for whatever he does, good or bad. You are now his handler, he is your asset."

"Don't call him that," I interject softly. "That's what _they_ called him."

"Right, sorry. He is your...charge? Does charge work?"

"Aside from sounding ridiculous, yeah, I guess."

"Well, it's true," he shrugs. "So...that's pretty much it. We clear?"

"Crystal, sir," I return smartly, giving him a mock-salute.

"Don't _do_ that," he sighs good-naturedly. "And...Taylor?"

I look up at him. "Yeah?"

"I'm...I'm really glad you're safe. Don't worm your way out of this one."

"I won't," I sigh. "I don't like the pain, believe it or not."

"I believe you."

He leaves the room quietly, and I sigh again before hopping off the bed.

I had a new _charge_ to find.


	20. Chapter 19

I eventually found Bucky in one of the "interview" rooms on the second floor. Interview was what the door said, anyways, and I didn't know why my dad wouldn't just call them interrogation because none of us were dumb enough to think they were anything else.

Bucky's sitting quietly in the chair facing the door, elbows propped on the table and his hands folded as if he were praying, with his eyes closed and a slight frown on his face.

"Hey there," I greet softly as I put down the cup of coffee I had picked up between Bruce's room and here, tossing a bunch of cream and sugar packets next to it. "I didn't know how you took it."

He cracks open an eye and, upon seeing the steaming cup, gives me a small grin. "Thanks, kid."

I roll my eyes as he fixes his coffee – two creams, no sugar – and takes a sip.

"Not bad," he nods. "I've had worse." His eyes fall on my sling-harness. "Glad to see you got that fixed."

"Yeah, I'm on medical leave, I guess you could call it, for the next week and a half, and then I've got to work back up to field duty. I'm under strict orders to adhere to that," I sigh, then shake my head. "So what were you doing while I was under the knife?"

"I was given the third degree by your father – who can be seriously scary, by the way – and an Air Force guy that I'm pretty sure outranks me by at least double, probably more."

"Don't you have seventy years of back pay?" I wonder aloud. "Or does that not count?"

"Eh," he shrugs. "I'm not really Army material anymore. Anyways, apparently they've determined I'm not a threat, and then left without another word."

"That might be my fault," I grimace. "I've, ah, irked them a bit. But – as far as where to go from here, I can answer that." I slide something across the table, a black disk about the size of a half dollar with a red light in the middle.

Unsurprisingly, Bucky doesn't pick it up right away. "What's that?"

"A tracker," I explain simply. "I am now your handler, and you're my charge, assistant, whatever you want to call it. I'm in charge of you now, so please try your best not to make my life a living hell."

"Aye, aye, ma'am!" he gives me a mock salute, and I chuckle lightly. "This a part of your punishment?"

I shrug. "Yeah, but it's also probably the best thing that could happen to _you_ , so I don't mind so much."

Bucky side-eyes me for a moment before tucking the tracker into his pocket. "That's probably true. So…where to now?"

"I think I'm supposed to meet with Darcy," I sigh, pushing back from the table and using my free hand to stabilize myself. "Come on."

"Not your dog," Bucky grumbles as he, too, stands, tossing his coffee cup in the trash as we left the room. I lead him into the elevator and down to the ground level, stepping out into the living room, seeing Darcy seated at the breakfast bar with one laptop open, another lying dormant next to her.

I rush over. "Hey, you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah," she nods, taking a moment before looking up at me. "I found some weird stuff, wanted you to take a look-see."

"Nobody says look-see anymore, Darce," I complain good-naturedly as I maneuver myself onto a barstool with a bit of grunting and hopping. "Nobody but Cap and pediatricians."

She rolls her eyes at me as I open up the laptop, accessing the phone logs for the Avengers. "What am I looking for?"

"A phone call between Rogers and Romanoff at about 5:30 this morning."

I glance at her. "That would've been about an hour after my – our escape. They would've noticed us missing by then."

"I know," she nods cryptically. "Just…there's the transcript."

I click on the file she was pointing to, opening up a file with the usual call information. Scrolling down slightly, I can see the first line of the call itself.

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _Any sign of him?_

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _None, not a peep. Steve, please, give it a rest._

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _No, I – I can't. He wouldn't do this to me. He wouldn't!_

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _Why not?_

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _He's my best friend._

"Well, we know who they're talking about," I muse, and Darcy nods in agreement.

"That's not it though. Keep reading."

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _You mean he_ was _your best friend. A lot can change in seventy years._

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _Please believe me on this, Tash._

"Wow." I let out a low whistle. " _Nobody_ calls her Tash. The most Hawkeye or I could ever get away with is 'Nat' or 'Tasha'."

"Do you think there's something else going on there?" Darcy questions.

"Maybe," I shrug. "That, or he's got a lot of _myachi_."

I can hear Bucky barely holding back his laughter behind us, and I kick up a smirk as I continue scanning the file.

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _I can't do that, Steve. There's not enough-_

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _Enough what?_

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _Evidence. Trust. Time. Pick one._

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _I…I can't…wasn't he your friend too?_

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _He was…my…colleague. But you can't trust anyone who's been brainwashed recently, Steve. Maybe this is what he needs to get his feet on the ground._

 _ **Steve Rogers:**_ _And it might just get him killed in the process. But…alright, we've got limited time to make up now. Get to the bridge._

 _ **Natasha Romanoff:**_ _On my way._

"That's it," Darcy reveals. "What do you think?"

I give the laptop a thoughtful look. "Well, I think our enemies are friendlier than expected with each other."

"Can we use that?"

"Against them?" I raise an eyebrow, and Darcy just gives a questioning look. "That would mean not only finding who has a relationship with whom, but then finding wherever they are, kidnapping that loved one, and bringing them here to use as leverage. And given that we're currently a man down…"

"Right, that's not going to work. But I'll keep looking to see if they've entangled themselves." She waggles her eyebrows at me. "Anything else?"

"Well, let's start with the basics. Come on, who can share the basics with the class?"

"Pick me! Pick me!" Bucky is practically bouncing on the couch.

I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing as I look at him expectantly.

"Who, what, when, where, and why."

I reward him with a sarcastic slow clap. "Very good, gold star. So, now, we have a _who_ : Cap and Widow discussing Bucky."

" _What_ is whether or not they can find me or should stop looking," the aforementioned man offers.

"The _when_ is obvious," Darcy figures, "5:30 this morning, about an hour after your escape."

"That would have put us…" I do some quick math. "About 350 miles out of where we were."

"Which brings us to _where_ ," Bucky sighs. "Sadly, not even I know this."

"Wait!" Darcy sits bolt upright on her stool. "Taylor, I need you to do your genius thing."

I tilt my head. "Go on."

"Can you use your flight time to create an estimated distance radius around the compound?"

"Right!" I exclaim, pouncing on the keyboard and typing furiously. "A flight at about 350 miles per hour for one hour twenty minutes ending in Providence…Okay, that gives us about 466 miles of the Northeastern US, Nova Scotia, and parts of Canada, including Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto."

"That narrowed it down, at least," Darcy allows.

"And we were off the eastern seaboard, definitely in the water," Bucky remembers.

"So that gives us anywhere from the northern coastline of Virginia to New Brunswick to Nova Scotia," I sigh. "And let's not forget that they can fly. Can they still fly?"

"They can," Bucky answers morosely. "But hey, we got close."

"I'm not giving up on that yet," I decide. "I'll see if I can get someone to track energy usage near those places. I'd do it, but I can't because that requires the use of the lab." I sigh dramatically and walk over to bonelessly flop onto the couch.

"Hey, calm down." Bucky comes to lean over the back of the couch. "We just got farther in half an hour than everyone else has in almost three weeks."

"And it only took me disobeying a direct order, getting kidnapped, and you becoming hated everywhere," I scoff bitterly.

Bucky doesn't say anything, but a hand comes down lightly on top of my head, and when I don't object, he ruffles my hair like I'd imagine he'd once done to tiny-Cap. "Hey, cheer up, myshka. We've got this."

"Did you just call me mouse…?" I shake my head. "Don't want to know, forget I asked."

Darcy walks back over to us, leaning against an armchair. "I just called Bruce and Rhodey, they'll look into that for us." She pauses, as if she was deliberating something. "Do you…would it help if we heard the voices? I've got the audio tape, maybe you can hear things unsaid."

I begin to respond, but I'm cut off by my own mind as I'm thrown back to a scene from the previous October.

" _I still don't see why we're doing this," I sigh, tugging my coat tighter against the autumn chill._

" _Because we're showing our support, Taylor," the redhead beside me sighs, completely unbothered by the cold. Which was unsurprising, really, given that she grew up in Russia. "And the candles are pretty."_

 _I glance over at a shop window we were passing, taking in the candles with light pink and/or blue ribbons wrapped around the bases. "I'll give you that. But, I mean, it's not like we were ever victims of this."_

" _True," she agrees, "but we'd be better at giving support on this than the guys. Or do you want Steve to give comfort on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day?"_

 _I give a shudder at the thought. "No thanks. I just don't see why we can't donate money and call it even."_

" _Because not every problem can be solved by throwing money at it, genius," she informs me, and I silently concede her point._

 _Silence falls as we enter a nearby park, the wind chasing dry brown and red leaves across our path._

 _My eyes fall on a young looking woman on a bench a few yards away, all of her attention focused solely on the baby carrier next to her. The look on her face is one of pure love and dedication, so strong that even from a distance it sends shivers down my spine._

" _Taylor?"_

" _Do you think I'd be a good mother?" I blurt out suddenly, my eyes suddenly falling to the ground._

 _Natasha doesn't answer right away, and my heart slowly climbs into my throat._

" _I think, given the right circumstances, you would be," she proclaims, and I look over at her. "You'd need to know that the kid had support beyond you, because of what your own mother did to you. You would need to know that your spouse wasn't going to leave the baby, and even if they did, that baby would have safety nets."_

 _I tilt my head, vaguely considering her words. "Yeah, but I've heard pregnancy sucks," I comment offhandedly._

 _She shrugs. "Maybe. What about me?"_

" _What about you?"_

" _Do you think I'd be a good mother?" she asks softly, eyes finding the same mother-baby duo I'd seen earlier._

 _I take a moment to try and visualize Natasha with a little redhead, and it surprisingly isn't so hard._

" _I think you would, given that someone could promise you, with absolute certainty, that he or she would be safe."_

" _Which isn't going to happen, not with the life we live," she decides bitterly. "So that's a 'no'."_

" _For the record…" I look over at her. "I think you make an awesome mother."_

"-lor? Taylor?"

I jerk back into reality, nearly falling off the couch as I do so. "What?"

"We were talking about the audio tapes," Darcy reminds me. "And-"

"No!" I exclaim. "No audio tapes, I – I'm good. I, ah, need to go to the bathroom."

I bolt of the couch, numbly exiting the room and heading for the bedroom Darcy and I shared, sinking into an armchair in the corner.

In all the chaos and angst that had become my life, I had forgotten about the other spy-assassin that was at the tower.

Hawkeye and Black Widow had become extremely important people in my life; one had been my boyfriend, the other a motherly-ish figure that I had grown up without, helping me get ready for dates and comparing the different physiques of the men we worked with. She'd even held Clint in a chokehold the first time we fought.

And now she had stabbed me – which might be my fault, given that I had put an arrow in her thigh first, but still. Now my hand would ache like an old lady's hip when it got cold or rainy (both of which frequented New York) and that was _with_ the improvements.

It was slowly becoming apparent that even if this war ended tomorrow, the ties that had been broken weeks ago were not going to heal that quickly, and a small, extremely realistic part of me knew that some of the wounds opened here – physical or psychological – would never heal.

My world was changing and it was waiting for no one.

The end result…that was currently unseen.

* * *

 **Thanks to RussianAssassin. candycrum, and TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms for reviewing the last chapter!**


	21. Chapter 20

**Hello! Just wanted to let you know that there's a poll on my profile that you guys should really check out (hint, hint) and it would be really helpful.**

 **This chapter is mostly filler – next chapter preparations for the big final battle will start, promise.**

* * *

My Bruce-induced medical torture (because that's _exactly_ what it was) lasted for the next twelve days, with twelve visits to Bruce's infirmary and twelve times Bucky outright told me he wanted to duct tape my mouth shut.

(I shut up, at least momentarily, after that because we both knew that was the _least_ he could do.)

So January 12th came with no sleep and copious amounts of caffeine that led to me bouncing like a possessed person in front of the infirmary at 9:59 in the morning.

"Taylor," Rhodey sighs from behind me. "Quit vibrating."

"If it were anyone else I'd be able to turn that into a dirty joke," I sigh dramatically. "And I am not _vibrating._ You, sir, insult me."

"Well if you're not vibrating, then what do you call…this?" He makes a wide gesture to my entire body.

I consider this for a moment before smirking devilishly. "Quivering," I announce simply.

Rhodey's face becomes an interesting purple color. "Archery puns?"

"Archery puns," I agree cheerfully. "And I can still turn it dirty, so it's a win-win, really."

Rhodey puts his head in his hands and groans. "How did I get stuck with you again?"

"Well, you got thrown under the bus by a soviet assassin and a crazy intern-handler," I remind him, stating the obvious. "And you're practically certified in the handling of caffeinated Starks."

"I deserve a raise," he grumbles, but my attention is quickly drawn from him by my watch beeping shrilly.

I quickly silence it and give an uncharacteristic squeal as I bound into the infirmary. "It's time! It's time it's time it's time it'stimeit'stime!"

Bruce doesn't look the least bit surprised to see me being punctual for once, instead just giving me a curious look as he sets down the thick stack of paperwork he'd been holding. "How many cups of coffee did you have this morning?"

I pause, counting off on my fingers. "Five. I think. Maybe more."

Bruce, who is also used to caffeinated engineers, just sighs and moves off to file something. "Don't come crying to me when you die of a heart attack."

"Dad does it too," I reason.

"I told him the same thing," Bruce counters as he comes back, wheeling an instrument tray. "And I have a feeling that this is a 'do as I say, not as I do' situation."

I just shrug and maneuver myself onto the bed, waiting patiently and with only a little trembling for Bruce to come and clear me already.

"Calm down before I tie you down," Bruce intones without even turning around as he sorts through some paperwork on his desk.

"Ooh, kinky," I leer without any real heat, mainly because I didn't want to piss off the guy that was in charge of my discharge papers.

Speaking of discharge papers, Bruce sets a stack of official looking papers on the nightstand to my left, tantalizingly close but just out of reach.

I glare at them like they've personally wronged me for a second before turning my attention back to Bruce, who was now standing in front of me, waiting patiently. "Shall we?"

I give him a little wave of consent, and he moves around behind me and begins to undo the harness. Soon enough the pressure on my shoulders lessens and my arm droops, and Bruce quickly puts the sling aside before coming back around to undo the bandages that wrapped my left hand in a mitten, stopping about three inches up my forearm. Before the unwinding gets too far, though, he pauses. "Do you want to see the scars?"

 _Oh, yeah, those, I forgot there'd be_ _ **more**_ _._ I automatically become hyper aware of the scars crisscrossing my right shoulder, but I shove the thoughts away and shrug. "Sure, why not?"

Bruce studies me for a moment, as if he could see what I wasn't saying, but then he nods and begins unwrapping and unsticking and untucking. When the last of the bandages falls away, he steps back and I can see my hand for the first time since its second repair.

The worst of the scars was on the inside of my hand because, from what I remembered through the nauseating, mind-numbing pain of the injury itself, the knife had tilted slightly, exposing the serrated edge to my palm. The scar itself was currently raised and pink, but I had a feeling that, unlike most of the scars on my shoulder, this one would eventually fade slightly. It would however, probably always be seen if only for the sheer size of it – the line started below the outside of my pinkie finger and sloped downwards, ending in the little bunch of muscle beneath my thumb joint.

Flipping my hand over, I realize the other side is just as bad, but at least it's a bit smaller because of because of both the angle and taper of the knife.

Small miracles. I suppose.

"Well," I muse without looking back up at Bruce, "could be worse. I've still got a hand."

"You're welcome," he deadpans, then gently grabs my wrist and instructs me to hold my harm out straight in front of me, for what will probably be the first in a monotonous series of tests.

* * *

I'm right.

Not that that's uncommon, mind you, but in this aspect I was right about the whole 'string of tests' thing.

Half an hour later, with a slightly sore shoulder but feeling better than I had in a while, I hopped off the bed, using both hands this time.

"Mine?" I ask, pointing innocently at the clearance papers on the nightstand.

"Yours," Bruce agrees with a small smile and a nod.

The papers are in my hand in a second, and I quickly flip through them with the trained eye of a business professional to make sure I'm not being duped before nodding in satisfaction. "Looks good. Now, erm, could you come down to Dad's lab with me? I'm not allowed down there alone and he wants to see these from you."

"Sure thing," Bruce grins at me. "Come on."

"Yayyy!" I literally skip out of the infirmary, racing down the hall to call the elevator. Once Bruce has caught up with me and we're both fully in the elevator, I let the doors close and repeatedly stab the button for basement level.

When we get there, I quickly drag Bruce to lab one, rapping my knuckles on the (bulletproof, Hulk-proof, bombproof, fire resistant) glass, holding up the papers when my dad looks up from his work, He nods and lets us in, Jarvis automatically opening the door and letting us in.

I walk up to his desk and slap the papers down, a big, smug, slightly cocky grin spreading across my face. "Ha."

"What's so funny?" Dad asks absently as he flips through the papers.

"Nothing," I reply as innocently as possible, keeping the grin on as he sets down the papers and gives me an appraising look. I hold both hands out, palm up, showing no sling but the new scar is in full view.

He nods after a minute, and I suck in a breath. Dad glances behind me at Brice, and they have a silent conversation I'm not privy to as uncomfortable tension mounts in my shoulders.

"Okay."

I blink in shock. "Huh?"

"So eloquent," Dad rolls his eyes and pulls a stamp out of his desk and stamps the papers with a big, red APPROVED. I take a moment to wonder where the hell he got the stamp before the word catches up to me. "Wait, really?"

"Really," he nods, grinning at me. "Congrats, take it easy, and don't overstress yourself, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He holds up a pair of small, silver, familiar keys. "Now, scram."

Normally I'd be offended by the rude dismissal, but I let it slide as I bolt out the door, heading up the hall, entering my access code to my own lab and immediately crossing the room to where a case sat on a table. Inserting one of the keys in a matching small silver lock, I twist them until I hear a soft click and the lock falls onto the table.

I flick open the latches and then the case, grinning like a madwoman as my bow and quiver come into view, pristine as (almost) always.

The smile shrinks slightly as I walk over and order my familiar training protocols.

I had a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it.


	22. Chapter 21

_Thwack._

 _Thwack._

 _Thwack._

I watch the last arrow bury itself in the target – a Styrofoam block – as Jarvis speaks up.

" _Miss Stark, Sergeant Barnes is requesting entry."_

"Let him in, J," I command, walking up to pull the arrow out of the block and slip it back in my quiver with a metallic twang.

"Well, well, well, look who's being a badass," Bucky teases behind me.

"Always, snowflake," I return, walking back over to the table where I had set down my bow. "Wish I could say the same for you."

"Shut it, myshka," he scoffs, and I duck the hand that was about to hit my head. "Aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?"

"I am!" I protest, walking back over towards one of the glass screens I had running. "I'm running tests – Jarvis, how far away was that last shot?"

" _A quarter of an inch, ma'am,"_ the AI reports after a slight pause.

I growl under my breath and scuff a boot against the floor. "Not good enough."

"Is it really that bad?" Bucky asks, leaning back against a desk.

"It could mean the difference between killing someone and hitting a bone like their skull," I explain as I adjust a graph with the new data point on the graph in front of me.

"If this is so frustrating, then why don't you go practice in the suit?"

"Because first of all, the suit is more point and shoot then actual aim, not to mention it's got a targeting system that can essentially aim for me if needed and it's been nearly seven years, aiming is practically muscle memory by now." I pause to spin a diagram around to another angle. "Secondly, this takes about double the time, effort, and physical ability."

"A simple 'I don't want to' would've worked," Bucky grumbles, but he hops up onto a workbench that thankfully didn't have anything sharp or explosive on it and settles in to watch.

I return to the duct-tape shooting line on the floor and pull another arrow out of the quiver full of just plain arrows and notch it, pulling back the string and taking a deep breath before letting it fly.

It hits with a solid _thunk_ , burying itself in about an inch past the head.

"Jarvis?"

" _An eighth of an inch, ma'am."_

I sigh and lower my bow, flexing my hand. I glance back at Bucky. "Wanna go get that?"

He looks genuinely horrified at that. "What, and have you pointing a live weapon at my back? No thank you."

I roll my eyes and make a show of setting down the bow and raising my hands. "We good now?"

"No, _now_ you're just being lazy," he counters, hopping up and moving towards the target anyways.

"I just can't win with you," I whine, crossing my arms petulantly.

"Nope," the assassin replies cheerfully, coming back to hand me the arrow before returning to his seat.

"You're impossible," I mutter as I line up another arrow.

About five minutes later the shots have lined up and are consistently staying there, although I knew that didn't mean I could slack now.

"Can we go now?" Bucky groans.

"Don't get your shorts in a twist," I snap. "And no, not yet. Wanna see something cool?"

"Did that sound that provocative in your head?"

"No," I reply exasperatedly, flicking a dull arrow at him, completely unsurprised at his graceful catch. "You and I both know I wouldn't do that and you wouldn't be interested."

"Who says?" he demands.

I don't justify that with a reply, instead just giving him a _'really?'_ look and moving over to another one of the screens and beginning to shut the projects down.

Once all the screens are away, I grab my bow, clipping it to my back, and lead Bucky out and into the elevator, hitting the button for the second floor.

Soon enough we end up in front of the armory, and I quickly swipe us in and wait while the fingerprint scanner does it's thing.

"Why are you showing me the armory?" Bucky asks, genuinely confused, as he follows me in.

"I'm not," I tell him simply as I head towards the left wall, pressing a small button about halfway up the wall. The panel slides back with a soft hiss, revealing a rack full of quivers. Both the newer, flatter, versions, and the old round ones; different models, slightly different shapes, and each one had a slightly different content.

I enter a code into a small keypad off to the side and the one almost directly in front of me – the one I normally used in the field – slides out, vending machine style. I take it and strap it on with practiced ease, waving for Bucky to follow me back out.

I take us back down to the east wing basement, entering lab five.

Lab five wasn't really a lab, not in the strictest sense – it was made to study things, yes, but not chemicals or machines, rather strategies. The walls and floor are all a smooth, solid black, with no windows but vents. There were projectors covering every open surface, save for a few square feet.

I point Bucky to an area on the far wall that was boxed in with bulletproof Plexiglas, made for other people to view what was going on in the main area.

I step into a pre-marked square a few feet wide painted on the floor and raised just a few inches. "Jarvis, begin the simulation, please."

" _Which one would you like to run, ma'am?"_

"Ah…make the targets as real as possible," I decide. "Cityscape, no contact fighting."

" _Yes, ma'am."_

The room darkens, gaining a blue tint and a soft whir as the thousands of tiny projectors start up.

" _Simulation starts in five, four, three, two, one…begin."_

The room changes into an illusion of a generic city – it could've been New York, LA, Chicago, or even some place like Metropolis or Gotham (which didn't exist, by the way, and Batman was a fake).

Four extremely realistic holograms appear with it, and of course fake-Cap rushes me first, forcing me to duck or get hit with a shield.

I react in an instant, first shooting a smoke arrow at his feet, then using that distraction to whirl around and shoot a blunt arrow – used for punching stuff and creating small holes in walls – at his shield, knocking it off path and out of reach. I turn back around with a sharp arrow this time, sending it through a now-weaponless Steve's heart.

Fake-Cap dissolves with a faint buzz.

But as soon as he does, the sound of gunfire – recorded, of course – comes from above me.

 _Falcon_ , my brain supplies as I notch an electrical arrow and aim it upwards, closing in on his central pack. The arrow flies true and sinks into the mechanical backpack (and, hey, I can see about five or so faults from here, I could _so_ much better) and electricity arcs outward, and his wings stall and he plummets.

Ideally, he would crash, but of course he just tucks and rolls and comes up at full steam with guns blazing. I step aside to dodge the bullets and fire a putty arrow to his left, the putty leaking out and Falcon's stuck in a tar pit in a matter of seconds. Then he gets an arrow to the face.

Fake-Falcon dissolves with a faint buzz.

A silver blur whizzes by my ear, and I step and turn in one fluid move, both dodging the knife and firing an arrow towards the source of the knife. It lands behind an upturned car, and if this was an explosive arrow fake-Natasha would be dead. Given that it isn't, a quick press of a button on my bow has the arrowhead separating into four separate lines, the ends clinging to various surfaces and trapping the Black Widow in a web of sorts (oh, sweet _irony_ ). Fake-Natasha gets an arrow to the side, slicing almost clean through her nonexistent torso.

Fake-Natasha dissolves with a faint buzz.

It suddenly occurs to me who's left and I take cover behind a tree, pressing my back firmly against the trunk. I hear the familiar sound of an arrow before I see it, and an arrow thuds into the dirt a foot away from my boots. It's quickly hit with a blunt arrow of my own, one arrow slamming into the other and both to tumbling into the distance, all effects negated.

I notch a flash-bang arrow and fire it towards the origin of the original arrow, a press of a button on my bow causing a series of loud bangs and flashes that would have surrounded the normal Hawkeye and brought him down - or at least distracted him - momentarily. As it was, fake-Hawkeye jumps forward and off the building, hitting the ground like a cat might and immediately raising his bow.

I break cover, darting towards an overturned car. I slide the last few feet, notching and firing a razor-tipped arrow that easily cuts through the top of his bowstring, effectively rendering his main weapon useless. Before the other archer can react, though, another slightly bigger sharp-tipped arrow is sent straight through his stomach, and I steadfastly ignore the heartstrings that pulled.

Fake-Hawkeye dissolves with a buzz, and a game-show buzzer sounds as the simulation ends and disappears, leaving me on my knees in the middle of a bare black room.

"That was amazing," Bucky declares as he approaches me, the enclosure having unlocked itself after the sim was over.

"Aw, you say that to all the girls," I deadpan, accepting the hand he offers.

"Nah, you're special," he returns saucily, but any retort I might've had died on my lips when the main door is flung open and Darcy runs in frantically.

"Guys," she pants, "we - we found...where they...might be headed."

I nod and wave for Bucky to go on ahead as I walk over to support Darcy as she catches her breath. "You okay?"

"Doing better," she breathes. "Thanks. Wait, are you in field gear?"

"No…" I reply innocently. Technically I wasn't in field gear, I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but she said nothing about armed.

The intern gives me a dubious look. "You were supposed to be taking it easy."

"I was," I reply cryptically, averting attention from that discussion by dragging Darcy out of the room. "Now hurry up, you said you had something."

It takes us about five minutes to get to the War Room, which is the picture of chaos: Dad and Bruce are talking animatedly with hand motions, Rhodey's staring at a screen with several flashy lights, the printer in the corner is running full steam, and something is beeping incessantly.

"Got her!" Darcy announces. "We're all here, Tony."

"Good, good," Dad replies absently, all of his attention focused on a screen in front of him. "Taylor, come here please."

I move his side, and he slides the screen over. It's showing four colored dots - one blue, one red, one grey, and one purple - all moving slowly westward.

"We found a lead," Dad explains, off to the side. "We have reason to believe that all the Avengers are moving westward. California, specifically."

My mind immediately begins jumping possibilities. "Are they going to Malibu? It could be an attack."

"Their projected path is too far north," Bruce replies, not even looking up from what he was doing. "By my best estimate they should end up about 400 miles north of Malibu."

"In other words, San Francisco," Rhodey continues, pointing at a map on one of the monitors.

"Well, they're definitely branching out," I comment. "Why do we think they're headed there?"

"I'm sure there's a bunch of psychological reasons, but mainly their social media," Darcy explains. "They've been dropping hints like crazy all over the web. About three hours ago Falcon tweeted using #SunnySanFran."

"And as for why they're going there, I'm pretty sure they're either looking for us or luring us there," Bruce explains. "I checked a few credit card statements - they've been buying big weapons and ammo in bulk. They've even been sniffing around a few big arms dealers."

"Well _that_ was stupid," I snort, leaning back in my seat and kicking my feet up onto the table. "Cap needs a better handle on his people. Or smarter people. And credit card statements aren't that hard to erase, Widow and Hawkeye know this."

"Oh that reminds me," Dad sets a box on the table, sliding it towards me. "Here."

I catch it with ease, using a small switchblade to cut through the tape at the top of the box. I pull out a black bundle that's revealed to be a jacket - completely black, made of what felt like a thick spandex, padded on the stomach, elbows and chest. The high, stiff collar had a small pin that looked like a gear with and I and an L. I recognized it as the not-widely-used Iron Legion logo.

"You recreated Sparrow." It's not a question.

"We don't know exactly what we're facing here," Dad offers by way of explanation. "I wasn't going to leave you up the creek without a suit."

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, letting my hands fist the jacket.

This was really happening, I was really going to go out there - to San Francisco - to fight these people after over a month of war and tension and uneasiness.

I open my eyes again and set the jacket back into the box, which I now knew also held a shirt, pants, more padding, boots, a utility belt that owned Batman's, and a pair of sunglasses that were more high-tech than some phones. In essence, Sparrow.

"So. We're making a fight out of this, then?" I ask flatly.

"We are because they are," Dad reminds me. "Everyone get suited up, we leave for San Francisco in an hour."

I already knew it would be the longest hour of my life.

* * *

 **Thanks to RussianAssassin, candycrum, and TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms for reviewing the last chapter! You guys rock!**


	23. Chapter 22

**Just wanted to remind you guys to keep voting on the poll, but don't vote more than once, please, as it'll mess up the results.**

* * *

Four and a half hours later, we were flying (mirrored, of course) just outside of San Francisco city limits.

"This is oddly normal," I observe, looking out the copilot window at the cars zooming by below us.

"And that's a bad thing?" Rhodey, who's next to me and flying the plane, asks. "That's not usually bad."

"Yeah, but given the timing, they should have been here an hour or so ago," I reply, shifting over to check some switches. "Keep your eyes open, guys."

I get various noises of agreement from the cabin as we enter the heart of the city, and I begin scanning for good places to land.

"There's a baseball field coming up on our one o'clock," Rhodey comments. "That a good spot?"

I tilt my head to look at what he means. "Fairly secluded, two major roads, on a hill…it's a good a place as any," I agree. "Begin landing procedures?"

"Begin landing procedure," he confirms, then radioing that info back to the occupants of the jet.

Five minutes later, we've touched down in the outfield of a baseball field surrounded by thick trees on two sides.

"I don't like this," I grumble softly, wearily scanning my surroundings.

"What, baseball not your thing?" Bucky teases, coming up behind me in full mission gear and handing over the helmet to Beta III.

I take it, putting it on and taking off to a higher vantage point on the roof of the jet. "No, not that. Although it is true," I admit. "But it's about 1:45 now, and they should have gotten here about an hour ago."

"So they aren't here?" Bruce frowns. "Are you sure?"

"Jarvis says they aren't," Dad interjects.

"Could it have been a trap?" Bucky wonders aloud, and I can see various muscles in his back tightening.

Dad stays silent for a moment before speaking up. "Someone get in touch with Base," he orders.

I nod as Jarvis immediately brings up Darcy's contact photo. "Iron Beta to Base Malibu, do you read me?"

" _I hear you, Beta,"_ she replies. _"What's up in 'Frisco?"_

"Not much, they haven't shown up yet. What do the surrounding airfields look like?"

There's a slight pause before she replies. _"There's nothing – wait, wait, hold up – there's a big jet coming in from your east, and it doesn't look like American Airlines."_

" _Got it,"_ I confirm. "We've got-"

My report is cut off by the dull _whoosh_ of jets – sure enough, coming from the east.

"Beta?" Dad asks, not taking his eyes off the approaching black blur. "Wanna go check that out?"

"Sure, make me the scapegoat," I complain, taking off anyways and rising until I'm level with the jet. "Well, it's definitely them," I report, rotating slightly until I'm out of range of the canons. "What do you want me to do?"

" _Don't hold back,"_ Rhodey suggests.

" _Give 'em all you got,"_ Dad advises.

" _Let loose,"_ Bucky chimes.

"Alrighty then." I swoop down so that I'm about twenty feet below the jet and on my back.

I blast the engine propeller directly, causing the plane to falter, then using a laser to slice off half the wing. "The Avengers' jet is falling down, falling down, falling down…"

" _They will survive that, right?"_ Rhodey asks skeptically. _"I do want to fight someone today."_

"Eh, they have parachutes," I shrug, diving back to the Legion jet. "Iron Man, we have a plan?"

" _Ah…okay, so, I'm no Cap, but here goes. Rhodey, you go find Falcon and keep him busy. Beta, go see if you can find Hawkeye. Compromise his perch. Bruce, try and have Jolly Green track down the Widow. Barnes, you and I are gonna face off against the good Captain. Got it?"_

"Got it," I nod, speeding off west. "J, where is Hawkeye?"

 _"There are no scans matching his signature, ma'am,"_ the AI informs me, and I can almost hear the regret in his tone.

"Figures," I sigh. "Then I'm doing this the old-fashioned way – _HEEERE HAWKY HAAWWKY! HEEERE BOY!"_

A cackles sounds over the comms. _"I don't think that's working, Beta,"_ Bucky laughs. _"Maybe he's at the pound?"_

"Oh, ha ha," I mock. "I'd like to see you do better. Jarvis, keep scanning," I order as I take a corner particularly fast. "Darcy, you can't see him, right?"

" _Negative, Beta,"_ she denies. _"I can see all the security cameras for a few blocks and he's not showing up."_

"Tell me if he does," I request, diving down lower to weave between buildings. "Does anyone-"

I'm cut off by a whistling sound to my right, quickly getting louder and louder.

I recognize the sound a moment too late.

The building next to me explodes outward with a massive blast, rubble and glass raining down as I'm slammed into the side of another building with enough force to rattle the suit around me.

" _Beta, come in!"_ I hear Dad shout, his tone bordering on panic. _"Beta, report!"_

"I'm here," I reply with a grunt, slowly maneuvering myself out of awkward angle that I had landed in. "I'll have bruises in the morning, but I'm fine. Who was that, Darcy?"

" _Falcon,"_ she answers grimly. _"He has explosives now."_

"Because he's their only aerial support," I realize.

" _Okay, new plan,"_ Dad announces. _"Beta, keep an eye out for Hawkeye, but go help Rhodey with Falcon."_

"On it," I respond without hesitation, curbing right and heading towards Rhodey's position.

I end up behind Falcon and, shifting so I would come up just under his right wing and ramping up the speed enough to create a vacuum behind me. "On your right!"

I circle back around, hearing the sharp _rat-tat-tat_ of War Machine's guns as he takes advantage of the distraction. As soon as I reappear, however, I've got Falcon on my trail and I'm forced to bolt.

As we dodge and weave through the streets and alleys, I quickly discover a problem: Falcon and I are both extremely skilled fliers and both extremely fast.

I flip onto my back and fire at him with both palms, but he just swoops out of the way and comes back around, diving directly at me.

"Damn it all," I swear as I'm forced down to street level, skidding past cars for a few hundred feet before skyrocketing again. "He's too fast!"

" _Well, you're faster,"_ Dad reminds me. _"He can't do half the things you do, and you know that. Figure it out, Beta, and fast please!"_

"Roger that," I grumble, but then an idea occurs to me. "J, I need a bridge, pronto."

" _The Oakland Bay Bridge is about a mile and a half to your east, ma'am,"_ a British voice reports.

"Thanks for being so informed," I quip as I suddenly curve east and pick up the pace a little, but not too much; fast enough so that I gained some distance, but not enough to lose him completely.

The bridge comes into view, and I smirk to myself before diving sharply, just barely brushing the side of the roadway before ducking underneath the bridge and flying back up so I was nearly touching the underside of the bridge, making it so he can either follow me or crash into the water below.

But he manages to follow me all the way, albeit with a lot of cursing and crashing.

I curse vehemently in Russian before flipping over and releasing a few more small missiles before flying up again, still staying close to the bridge and at some points missing it by mere inches.

I see my chance in a spot between two beams at the top of the bridge, rolling as I pass through them, my two beams hitting Falcon dead center in the chest.

This time it works – there's a crunching sound behind me, followed by a shout of surprise, and I look back to see Falcon hit the ground with a dull thud and not moving again.

"Jarvis, he is still alive, right?" I ask hesitantly, hovering above the scene.

" _Mr. Wilson's vital signs are only slightly lower than usual, Miss Stark,"_ Jarvis reassures me. _"You did not kill him; however, judging from his background in the Air Force, he will probably regain consciousness quicker than average. Might I suggest you not let that happen?"_

"Of course you may," I smirk, sinking slightly and using lasers to cut off half of each wing. "There we go. Guys, I've got Falcon down on the Oakland Bay Bridge, and he's not going anywhere."

" _Good work,"_ Dad praises. _"Base, any reading on Hawkeye yet?"_

" _Not a word,"_ Darcy sighs. _"Beta, you can go, I'll keep an eye on him."_

"Thanks." I flip around and head back to the city, slower this time and with less risky maneuvers.

About two blocks later, a volley of gunshots ring out and I cringe. "Darcy?"

" _Hulk and Widow have cornered each other,"_ she reports. _"Big Guy will be fine, he's bulletproof, I think."_

"What about her?" I ask hesitantly – I didn't want anyone to die, whether they were on my team here or not.

" _I'll call you if he starts getting agitated,"_ she promises. _"Go."_

I sigh but keep moving anyways. I decide to head south, see if I can catch up with Bucky, Iron Man, and Cap. "Iron Man, have you found Cap yet?"

" _Yeah, Beta, and I-"_ his response is cut off by a loud _pop_ in my ear, followed by a hiss of static and all of the holoscreens shutting off.

My first thought is _oh crap._

My second thought is _EMP._

My third thought is that I was quickly approaching a rooftop and I had two choices: I could either a) crash in the suit and possibly kill myself, or b) land on my own terms and possibly suffer a broken leg.

Well, I _have_ always been known to do things my own way.

"Jarvis, shatter joint the suit."

Beta III essentially falls apart around me, leaving me about four and a half feet in the air and free falling.

I hit the concrete roof beneath me hard, shooting pains rocketing up my knees from the impact site on my shins. I take a moment to breathe once I'm sure I'm not in any danger.

After a minute or so, I stand up and peruse the city from my new perch.

It doesn't look good, I will admit; there's plumes of thick, black smoke rising from a few buildings, cars with their windows smashed in and crashed on the side of the road, and a few of the buildings looked structurally unsound with large holes in them. And there was a car lodged in the side of what looked like a bank.

This was _very_ real all of a sudden.

And the gloves had just literally come off.


	24. Chapter 23

My comms are the first thing to come back, thanks to the wonders of Stark technology.

" _This is Base Malibu, does everyone read me?"_

"Beta here," I confirm once I've got my earpiece in.

" _This is War Machine."_

" _I'm here too,"_ Dad responds.

There's a roar from the northern parts of the city.

" _And Hulk is safe,"_ he continues. _"Who packed the EMP?"_

"My best guess would be either Widow or Hawkeye," I reason as I grab my sunglasses and slip them on, relieved at the targeting system that quickly comes up. I grab my bow, extending it and using a grappling arrow to get to street level. "We need a new plan now, anyone got anything?"

" _Well, Hulk is un affected, so he'll just keep busy with Black Widow_. _Barnes, you keep Cap busy. I need to get the suits back online…Rhodey, can you guard me?"_

" _Well, it's not like I've been in the Air Force since I was eighteen or anything,"_ Rhodey retorts, sounding slightly offended.

" _Okay, jeez, cupcake, don't get your panties in a bunch. So I'll work on the suits-"_

"Focus on your suit," I interject, ducking into an alleyway for cover. "I can function pretty well outside of the suit – no offense, but the same can't be said for you."

" _None taken. I'll work on_ _ **my**_ _suit, then. Beta, keep trying to find Hawkeye. That it?"_

"That's it."

" _Alright then, get to work!"_ The comms then go quiet, and I duck out of my cover, sticking close to the buildings as I make my way up the street. I press a finger to my earpiece. "Jarvis, any sign of Hawkeye?"

" _I am still scanning ma'am, but there is none at the moment_ ," he informs me regretfully.

I swear under my breath. "Why does he have to be so hard to find?" I ask rhetorically. "I mean, I get it, but Jarvis can't find him, so it's like he's not on earth at the moment-"

" _Beta, DUCK!"_

I immediately hit the ground as something whizzes overhead, followed by two metallic _clangs_ , a whizzing sound again, and then a thud.

"Sorry about that," someone calls, followed by a few grunts.

I pop back onto my feet to see Bucky and Cap locked in combat a few yards away. "Need some help, _pridurok_?" I call.

"Sure thing, _myshka_." Bucky answers as he dodges a punch to the head. "Go play keep-away with the shield."

I nod and move so that I'm directly in Cap's field of vision, practically holding up a flashing neon sign that said 'I'M HERE! COME AND GET ME!' Like the completely predictable creature he is, Cap throws the shield directly at me. I easily sidestep it the first time, turning around to catch it on the rebound and take off running in the other direction.

About thirty seconds later, it occurs to me that a normal human like myself trying to outrun a _super-soldier_ was a _really_ bad idea.

And so I resorted to dirty tactics. "Jarvis, I need a hill, a big hill."

" _Lombard Street is coming up on your right, ma'am."_

"Thank you." I skid to a stop at the top of the famous Lombard Street, the curviest street in San Francisco. The street itself had eight hairpin turns and a 27% grade, which was too steep for most cars.

But not for people with sleds.

I throw the shield down in front of me, curling style, then jump on top of it like a skateboard. Given that I've never skateboarded before, I'd say I do pretty well – using the curbs as pinball-style bumpers and not falling off once.

I was no Olympic skier, but this was _fun. I should really get Cap to let me do this again someday._

Once I reach the bottom of the street, I jump off the sled, tucking and rolling while the shield itself bounced off to who-knows where.

"Hey," Bucky pants as he rounds the corner. "Where's the shield?"

"Over there," I wave a hand in the general vicinity of where I thought it went as I pick myself up off the ground. The landing had been a bit rough, and I could tell I would be feeling it later. "Where's Cap?"

"I ditched him, we have about five minutes," Bucky explains as he walks back over with the red, white, and blue painted disc. "You scratched the paint, and that's nearly impossible. What did you _do_?"

"Went sledding," I admit absently, already up and moving, ignoring Bucky's incredulous gaze behind me.

True to Bucky's word, Cap finds us about five minutes after that, and Bucky confronts him while I continue to keep the shield out of the picture.

"Watch out!"

I dive behind a car just before Bucky slams Cap into the ground where I had been standing before, the two of them continuing to wrestle on the other side of the car.

Setting the shield down, I take a look at my surroundings – I could hear water to my east and west, and looking up I could see the scarlet-orange struts of the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a sign on a building across the street that said _Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center._

(Ugh. _Tourists._ )

A dent in the car next to my left shoulder causes me to reflexively jump to the side, but me doing that accidentally pushes the shield out into the open and a hand grabs it.

I duck back behind the car, cursing under my breath as I notch a putty arrow. I stand and aim at Cap's head, firing as soon as I got a clear shot. The arrow hits Cap in the side of the head, and black putty quickly begins to spread out over his face.

The shield gets blindly thrown off towards the bridge, and I notch another arrow – this one adamantium-tipped, aka the only thing that can affect vibranium.

In my defense, the arrow _does_ hit the shield – it nicks the edge of the circle, leaving a gash a few inches long. The problem arise when it _keeps going_ and is headed straight for the support wires of the bridge.

I wince and squeeze my eyes shut as I hear the cable get cleanly snapped in two and whip back sharply, the force of the whiplash cutting the wire behind it.

It's a domino effect from there – _snap, snap, snap, snap, snap._

I open my eyes and swear vehemently as the bridge, now basically unsupported for about a hundred yards on one side, begins to creak and groan, the ground underneath our feet beginning to crumble. The roadway beneath the cables begins cracking and twisting, the metal struts groaning like a legendary sea monster.

Everything goes silent for a moment, neither Bucky nor I daring to do so much as breathe.

And then the bridge begins it's collapse, causing the ground beneath our feet to shake with all the force of an earthquake. The tower closest to up falls sideways into the bay, twisting up a large section of road with it and causing a ripple effect that rips up about half the bridge.

Within seven minutes after the arrow hit the first wire, the Golden Gate Bridge, a historic landmark since Bucky's time, has been completely ripped in half and most of our side of the bridge is in the water.

Bucky is the first to break the startled silence that's blanketed our huddle. "Okay, we don't have to _pay_ for that, right?"

The normalcy of the question, plus the shock of what just happened, sends me into a bout of semi-hysterical laughter. "God, I hope not," I reply, wiping tears from the corner of my eyes. "J, put dad on the line."

" _Taylor?"_ Dad's voice comes over the comms, slightly panicky. _"What was that? Are you okay?"_

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I wave him off. "But…just, um, hypothetically, how much would it cost to rebuild half the Golden Gate Bridge?"

There's a pause. _"Taylor, what did you do?"_ he asks cautiously.

"Not much," I lie, "and it want my fault anyways, it was Cap's. So how much would it cost?"

" _Nearly seven hundred seventy-five thousand dollars,"_ he sighs. _"What did you do?"_

I sigh. "Look at the Golden Gate Bridge."

There's a long silence and I begin to think he's hung up on me when there's a loud burst of vicious curses. _"Taylor Maria Stark, how many times do I have to tell you that destroying national landmarks is frowned upon?!"_

I snort. "So…can we peg this on the Avengers, then?"

A _click_ is my only answer.

"Dad? Hello?" I sigh and turn to Bucky. "Think I broke him."

"Him, the bridge, and most of the city," Bucky lists with a groan. "And we lost the shield too."

I roll my eyes, but another voice sounds in my ear. _"Iron Beta, come in! We've found Hawkeye!"_

My attention immediately snaps back into focus. "Where?"

" _He's perched at the corner of California Street and Park Presidio Boulevard, about two miles south of your position,"_ she reports.

"I'll be there in two," I promise, vaulting over the car and taking off down the street.

A minute and a half later, I'm in the location Darcy specified, scanning the skies for any sign of the other archer.

I find no sign of him until and arrow is sprouting between my feet. I mentally trace it's path backwards and find the world-famous Hawkeye ( _Clint Clint Clint_ ) perched on top of an apartment building.

Ignoring my emotional pain for the moment, I give him a shark's smile. "Hiding, were we?"

"I wasn't hiding," he fires back, "you just took forever to find me."

"Yeah, right," I snort. "And I-"

I'm cut off by a blinding light a few feet away, and I immediately take cover behind a car.

The air suddenly seems very charged, and electric tingles are racing up and down my body.

 _Electric – ooohh._

The light fades to reveal Thor, in full battle armor with his hammer by his side.

"Thor, buddy!" I greet from behind the car. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I have been staying out of this conflict, Lady of Iron," he admits; his voice, for once, is showing his age. "'Tis a foolish war, but I cannot stand by and watch my shield brothers and sisters hurt one another." I hear him set his hammer down with a thud.

"Yeah, well," I narrow my eyes threateningly at Hawkeye, "stay out of this one, Thor!" I cup my hands around my mouth. "Scared, Hawkeye?" I taunt, ignoring the way my heart twists. "Is the big, bad, birdie _scared_?" In a show of reckless abandon, I abandon my cover to stand in the center of the street.

"Not of _you_ ," he retorts hotly, and then disappears from view. I smirk as, a moment later, his boots thud down right behind me.

And thus begins our dance.

I step back, slamming my heel down onto his toes, but he sidesteps and uses a leg to hook mine, trying to pull me off balance. I let myself fall backwards, rolling smoothly back onto my feet, facing him this time. We begin to exchange blows back and forth.

At one point he asks me "Why did you leave?"

"Why didn't you stop me?" I retort, catching his leg as he goes to kick me and lifting, shoving him off balance.

"Because," he retorts as he catches himself with his hands, kicking out with his legs again, "we both know you would've hated me for it. Why did you leave in the first place?"

With my legs swept from under me, I make myself fall forward, onto Hawkeye's back as he was getting up. "A little girl would have died because Cap gave an order," I snarl, shifting my weight forward and tipping both of us forward.

He rolls both of us forward, the tumble ending with me on my stomach with my metal arm pinned behind my back. "I know that," he snaps, tugging the arm up so that a normal arm would've been dislocated. As is, something cold touches my arm before electricity rockets up and down the arm.

I grit my teeth and kick up, sinking my heel into a soft spot just above his knee. He gets off me, and I stand and scurry away, quickly prying a small metal disc off my arm and rolling the arm to shift the motors back into place. "Then why'd you follow the order?" I demand as I lunge at him again.

He doesn't answer me, instead just ducking and letting me sail over him.

I land in a crouch, quickly jumping back up in time to catch the fist that was headed for my throat. I push it back towards him, using my other hand to whack him upside the head. "And what about me? Was I not that important to you?"

"Really?" he snarls. "You want to talk about not being important?" He aims a kick at my shins, and I jump out of the way. "Why do you have to be so goddamned loyal to Tony? Why did you have to follow him?"

"Because I trust him," I snap, grabbing his wrist and twisting. "He's all I had for thirteen years."

"I was your friend for three years before I was your boyfriend," he points out and he yanks my hands off his wrist, reaching for a nerve point and pinching. "And we'd been dating for a year and a half before this. Why didn't you trust me enough?"

The question itself makes me pause for a moment, and in that split second he manages to slip a blow past my defenses. His fist connects with my face and black spots explode in my vision, snapping my head back with the force.

Something snaps in my head and everything comes out at once – the next thing I know he's stumbling backwards with a bloody nose and there's blood on my left knuckles and my hand hurts.

I stare at him for a long second, ice slowly invading my veins.

" _Beta?"_ a voice speaks up in my ear, yanking be out of my trance. _"The Legion's meeting at the jet, we need to regroup. Can you get here?"_

"Y-Yeah, I'll be right there." I quickly grab my bow from where I had dropped it, sprinting out of the intersection as fast as my legs could carry me. I didn't want to see the look on my ex's face, nor the blood on his lips, both of which were there because of _me_ and I don't even know what I did-

I shake my head as I enter the baseball field where we had landed…three hours ago, now.

Had it really been three hours?

It certainly felt like it – my entire body was sore and dusty, my hands were all scraped up, my face felt like someone had slammed it into the ground repeatedly, and my left hand was incredibly stiff.

The rest of my team didn't look any better, nor did the Avengers themselves: there were red and gold parts on the ground, Cap was missing his cowl, doubled over with a hand pressing against his hip, Bucky's hair was a mess and he had a massive purple bruise forming on the left side of his face, Falcon was still nowhere to be seen, Bruce – not Hulk – was completely naked and passed out on top of a pile of rubble, Rhodey was slumped over, leaning on the jet itself, and Natasha had several tears in her suit and a bloodstain on her side.

We were all covered in muck and grime, and all of us looked so _tired_.

I spin around, looking up in hopes of spotting Iron Man (convincing him _end this please end this_ ), and it just so happens that I had a front row to the sound of gunfire and the look on Hawkeye's face as he fell.

With holes in his stomach. The fabric of his uniform was slowly turning red - _blood red_.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as my vision tunneled to the archer lying motionless about ten yards away.

Suddenly I completely forgot the past month - the heartbreak, pain, anger, and suffering all faded away and all I could see was Hawkeye – _Clint_ – lying there on the snow-dusted asphalt, blood slowly leaking out of his body.

My legs are moving before my brain catches up, and I vaguely remember shouting for someone to cover me as I skid to a stop by his side, blood lapping at my boots. My bow falls to the ground with a clatter as I fall to my knees next to my ex-boyfriend and automatically (I'm moving on autopilot now) press my hands to his stomach.

"B'ta?" he mumbles. "Wha…"

"Shut up," I order. "Please don't talk."

"B'ta…Taylor," he gasps and coughs, and I flinch at the specks of blood that appear on his lips. "I…d'dn't wan…to end…th's way…"

"Shush," I breathe, adjusting my hands and definitely _not_ focusing on the red that's seeping between my fingers. "This isn't the end, Hawke- Clint. This isn't it, you hear me? I still need to kick your butt for letting me leave."

He gives me a smile that looks more like a grimace, showing too many bloodstained teeth. "'M sorry. I…sorry."

I shake my head. "Stop talking." I press harder to try and staunch the blood flow. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault, okay? You didn't do anything."

"Had to…" he coughs and gags some more, "follow orders…"

"I know, love," I bit my cheek and fight to keep my voice steady, "I know. But you won't die."

"Why…n't?"

"Because I said so," I grumble. "And you wouldn't do that to me."

He grimaces again and a gurgle of a cry falls from his lips. "I - d'dn't mean…to…"

I stay quiet, my brain kicking into overdrive. _Human body = 5.5 liters of blood, Clint lost = ?, Able to lose = 2.5 liters,_ _ **there's too much blood**_ **-**

"'ey," he calls weakly. "Stop…that."

"Stop what?" I ask, if only to keep my mind of the fact that my pants are soaked in red by now.

"Overthinking," he gasps, "stop…it."

"Can't help it," I murmur bitterly. "And now shut up before I gag you." We both know that's an empty threat. As empty as they come.

Clint shudders in a breath. "I'm…so sorry…"

" _Clint-"_

"No - listen," he coughs. "I…love you…"

"I know that, silly," I breathe. "Shut up."

"'m…sorry…."

And his eyes fall closed.

"Clint!" I scream. "No! Come on, don't do this to me, love, please don't do this! _Please-"_

Time passes in a blur after that - I'm only vaguely aware of someone – Rhodey? – calling an ambulance, sirens wailing, someone trying to drag me away from Clint, voices talking urgently, and then Clint's _gone_ and tires are screeching.

I'm left kneeling in a quickly cooling pool of blood that isn't mine, my hands stained with the same blood and Clint's gasped words echoing in my head.

 _"I didn't want it to end this way…"_

Yeah, well, neither did I.


	25. Chapter 24

I hate hospitals.

I hate hospitals because every single time you wake up within the walls of one, either you or someone you care for is majorly hurt, and given the fact that most of my makeshift little ( _broken_ ) family absolutely _despises_ hospitals, including myself, it's even worse than normal for one of us to end up in there.

Today it was Clint in there with three bullet holes to the stomach and major blood loss while I waited out in the OR waiting room with a cup of cold coffee, surrounded by white walls, squeaky white linoleum, sterile air, and the smell of ammonia. Ironically, hospitals were never very, well…hospitable.

"Vorobey?" a soft, almost hesitant voice calls in Russian.

I glance upwards, surprised to see Natasha standing over me. "Oh. Hello."

She glances between me and the doors to the operating room. "No word?"

I shake my head. "I would've called you or Cap if there had been anything. You're his team."

She shakes her head, lackluster red curls just getting even more matted. "There are no teams here. Not here."

I give her a calculating look for a moment before sighing heavily. "Did someone send you?"

"No," she shakes her head. "I came to find you because you shouldn't be alone."

"And you couldn't send Bucky?" I ask suspiciously, shifting my left hand so that the pink, raw scar was visible. It was a little less stiff right now, but only because it was dressed in two Icy-Hot pads and I was on Tylenol.

She gives the scar a long, unreadable look before turning to look me dead in the eye. "Do you want the company or not?"

I wasn't sure – I did want company, yes, because it was better than drowning in my own fear and grief, but did I want _her_ company? She had stabbed me in the hand about 3 weeks ago, but Natasha was still Clint's best friend and had been for years.

I wasn't even his girlfriend - technically, she had more right to be here than I did.

"Whatever," I shrug. "I don't care."

She nods and silently settles into a chair a few feet away, and I notice the gym bag she kicks under her. "You planning to stay here overnight?"

"Are you?" She challenges. "You haven't been home yet. Look at yourself for a moment."

I follow her advice and glance down, taking my sweat-encrusted shirt, the sleeve cuffs dyed a dark reddish-brown, my pant legs stiff and matted with dried blood. My stomach rolls dangerously - how did I not notice this before?

"It's called shock," Natasha pipes up, answering my unsaid question. "It's not your fault. I brought you some clothes from the Tower and you need to go freshen up."

"But-"

"I'll call if there's any news," she promises.

Shaking off the surprise that comes at Natasha still having my phone number, and stand and stretch before grabbing the bag and slowly trudging off to the nearest bathroom.

As soon as I'm in the door, I drop the bag on the floor and fish my phone out of an inner jacket pocket. "Jarvis?" I ask. "You up, buddy?"

" _For you, ma'am?"_ The familiar British voice answers. _"Always."_

"I need you to scan something for me, J," I request, holding the phone's camera up to the bag, waiting as a blue laser scanned in up and down.

" _There does not appear to be anything harmful in the bag, Miss Stark,"_ he reports, and I nod.

"Right, I didn't think so. Thanks, Jarvis." I turn off the phone and shed my jacket, the rest of my clothes quickly following it.

Hospital showers are dingy, of course, but the water was hot and beggars couldn't be choosers. I let the hot water relax some of the tension in my body while washing off the dirt, grime, dust, soot, and dried blood that were spread over my body.

I turn the water off just as it starts to get cold, shivering slightly as I snatch the bag and unzip it. A quick investigation of the bag reveals an old purple t-shirt, grey yoga pants, a pair of worn-out sneakers, and an Iron Man hoodie.

I quickly get dressed, reveling in the comfortable clothes after a month of complete chaos.

Just as I begin to put the bloodstained clothes back in the bag, a metallic glint at the bottom of the bag catches my eye. I instantly startle, wondering if Natasha had slipped in a knife, but then I realize it's a golden color and nobody uses gold knives.

The object turns out of be a necklace, and I instantly recognize it as the one Clint had given me when I was eighteen, the first Christmas we were together. It was an onyx pendant with a gold heart and matching border, with 'I Love You' engraved in 120 languages all over. _Te amo, je t'aime, ti amo, wo ai ni…_

" _I….love….you…"_

The memory comes back with a vengeance, causing me to physically stumble back against the counter of the sink.

Those three words – words that both of us treasured so much because of what we've been through – were practically his – the last thing he said to me. (Not his last words, those will not be his last words.)

And how did I respond?

" _I know that, silly…Shut up."_

I gag suddenly, turning around to bend over the sink and lose the contents of my stomach, which was really just bile because I hadn't eaten a thing for…nearly twelve hours now.

"Taylor?" a soft voice asks behind me, and I jump nearly a foot in the air, slamming a knee on the underside of the counter and reaching for a weapon I didn't have. " _Myshka,_ shh, it's alright."

 _Bucky_. I relax, slumping my shoulders forward and resting my head on the faucet. "So you stalk women's bathrooms for fun now?"

"Ha, ha, funny," he murmurs, gently taking my arm and gently leading me over to the wall, having me sit back with my legs out in front of me. He fished out a bottle of water from somewhere and hands it to me. "Drink. Small sips."

I nod and unscrew the cap, sipping it as instructed, letting it cool the acidic burn in my throat. "How's everyone else doing?"

Bucky sighs and drops down so that he's sitting in front of me. "Well, Cap and your dad are avoiding each other like the plague, Natasha's still out in the waiting room, Bruce is in recovery and working on bringing Betty home, last I saw Rhodey he was wandering around the hospital gift shop, Falcon's passed out somewhere, and Thor is down in the hospital cafeteria with Darcy."

"And Clint…?"

He shakes his head, loose pieces of hair falling into his eyes. "Still no word. Might I ask what brought this on?"

I glance down, searching for the necklace and finding it securely tangled around my right hand. I frown at a nick on the edge, probably from banging into the counter. "Clint gave this to me the Christmas after I turned eighteen," I explained. "Just six months after we began dating."

Bucky gently takes the necklace from my hands, squinting at the tiny inscriptions. "What language is this?"

"There's 120 of them," I quip, giving a small smile. "And they all say I love you."

"That's sickeningly sweet," Bucky comments, giving an exaggerated shudder at the prospect. "And then what happened?"

"Do you know what the last thing he said to me was?" I ask, tilting my head against the tile wall behind me.

Bucky blinks, startled by the non-sequitur. "Uh…no?"

"He said 'I love you'," I reveal quietly. "Well, no, technically the last thing he said was 'I'm sorry', but I'm gonna ignore that because he has absolutely nothing to apologize for. But he said 'I love you' and all I did was tell him to shut up. And now-" I choke on my words, my chest beginning to heave. "He – and I just – and he might –"

I'm cut off by Bucky pulling me into a hug, wrapping his metal arm around my waist and running his fingers through my damp hair. "Hush, _myshka, dorogoy,_ it will be alright. Clint won't die-" I flinch at the word, inhaling the scent of smoke, laundry detergent, and metal, "-because if there's one thing I've learned about the hawk in the past year, it's that that fella's incredibly resilient and stubborn. Like you."

"He took three shots to the gut, Bucky," I sigh, still not moving from the embrace. "And he's not enhanced in any way. No serum, no iron armor, no magical hammer. No way to prevent this."

"No one could've prevented this, Taylor," he argues gently. "No one except for whoever shot him – unless, that is, you can suddenly see the future, in which case I want to know if I age well."

I give a watery laugh, finally pulling away from the hug. "Do we know who shot him?"

"We won't know until we get the bullet, and-" Bucky's cut off by his phone beeping, and he glances at his screen. "Speak of the devil. That's Natasha, and she has a doctor and some news. Come on, up."

I accept the hand he offers, pulling myself up onto mostly steady feet. "Hey, _pridurok_?"

"Hm?"

I hold out the necklace shyly. "Can you…?"

"Sure thing." Bucky quickly fastens the necklace around my neck without another word, and I nod in satisfaction before leading the way out the door. "Come on, you've been in the ladies' room too long, you creep."

He laughs and shakes his head, but doesn't protest as he follows me out.

We find Natasha waiting in the waiting room where I left her…forty-five minutes ago now, wow, time flies when you're breaking down. She's waiting with who is apparently Clint's doctor, a young, fresh-faced woman – girl, really – with auburn hair and horn-rimmed glasses whose nametag read Simmons.

Doctor Simmons looed younger than Clint. Hell, she looked barely older than _me._

"Miss Stark?" Simmons holds out a hand. "I'm Mr. Barton's doctor."

I nod, shaking her hand. "And I'm his-" _what? Girlfriend? Teammate? Frenemy?_ "-erm. Friend. Yeah. So what's up, Doc?"

Simmons grins slightly at the Bugs Bunny reference, but then she's all business. "I won't lie, he could be doing better, but that's to be expected with three bullets in his gut. One of them pierced his gall bladder, and we had to remove it. Minor surgery, it's really quite common. The second bullet literally ended up _inside_ his stomach, and that one was a bit more risky because a little bit of the stomach contents slipped out into his system, and now we need to keep him sedated as long as possible so that he doesn't tear those stitches and cause serious damage to himself. The third bullet…he was lucky there. It slipped between his stomach and liver and headed straight for his spine."

The blood rushes out of my face and my stomach plummets - _is he paralyzed? Can he walk? Talk? Basically function?_

"Don't worry," Simmons backpedals quickly, "the bullet didn't break his spinal cord, so he's still got function of everything. It did, however, severely bruise on of his top lumbar vertebrae, so that will be painful for a while. I don't recommend him moving in the near future."

I nod, swallowing around the lump in my throat. "Can – can we see him?"

The doctor frowns. "He's essentially in a medically induced coma right now, Miss Stark. He won't hear you, and we put him in a clean room to let him heal post-op with no external bacteria."

"I know. I just…need to make sure. Please?" I plead.

"If you think it'll help…follow me, please."

I nod and hurry after the young doctor as she leads me down a bunch of hallways I don't both to memorize until she pushes open a door marked 'Post-Op Clean Room A'. She leads me into what I assume is an observation room; a small, plain room with a big window running the right wall.

And on the other side of that window was Clint, lying still on a hospital bed. He was as white as the sheets, his multiple cuts and bruises standing out like a sore thumb, and his stomach and abdomen were heavily bandaged and the bandages were slightly red. All the monitors around him were still beeping steadily, though, and that was good because it meant he was alive and I had a chance to fix this.

"We only plan to keep him in isolation for the next 48 hours," Simmons explains, coming to stand next to me. "Just until we can be sure."

"And after that, will he be okay to be moved?" I look over at her. "To, say, New York, maybe?"

She gives me a suspicious look. "Would there be a qualified doctor on hand for constant supervision?"

Well, technically, Bruce was a qualified doctor, just not a _medical_ one.

"Yes," I nod. "My personal doctor. If you have the files, I can send them to him right away."

Simmons still looks dubious, but she glances between me and Clint a few times before nodding hesitantly. "If you're sure, Miss Stark."

"I am," I assure her. "But that'll take a few days. In the meantime, I was told you would have the bullets for me?"

She nods and hands me an unassuming plastic baggie with three crushed bullets in it, almost unrecognizably deformed.

I nod and slip the bag into my jacket pocket without looking at them, half of me not wanting to find out where they came from and the other half not wanting to wait. "If that's all, Doctor?"

Simmons nods, recognizing the obvious dismissal. "That's all, Miss Stark. You should receive those files soon and please remember that visiting hours end at 8:30."

I nod and she leaves the room, allowing me to lean against the wall opposite the glass and lean my head back.

It was January 12th, 2020, around 8:00 pm.

If you had asked me exactly one month ago where I thought my future was headed, I would've told you I didn't know.

And it would've been the truth: my world had just recently been split down the seams and I was being betrayed on all sides by people I would've once died for.

I was a scared, frustrated, angry, and heartbroken nineteen (almost twenty) year old one month ago.

And I still was.

For all my impatience, I was no fool; I knew my life wouldn't just snap itself back to any assemblance of normal right away. I knew that repairing things, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional, always took a bit of time, effort, and elbow grease.

And this was no different.

"' _Tis a foolish war,"_ Thor had said, and he was right. It would take time to trust all of the Avengers again, especially the Captain, but I had time.

I knew Clint and I had a _lot_ to discuss, but I was okay with that.

I had finally found a place where I was happy, and I'll be damned if I let that get away.

* * *

 **Well.**

 **That's it, folks. There's the final chapter of Dissension.**

 **But don't worry! I will be posting a fix-it story called** _ **Duct Tape Can Fix (Almost) Everything**_ **in a few days, at least. It'll have Clint's recovery and Taylor working on reconnecting with people, so keep your eyes peeled.**

 **Thanks to RussianAssassin, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, and candycrum for reviewing the last chapter, and special thanks to RussianAssassin for being an awesome unofficial beta!**

 **Keep reading, favoriting, following, voting on my IronWidow poll, and reviewing (I'm 10 reviews away from 100, and if I meet that then virtual cookies for everyone!).**

 **Until next time,**

 **IronSparrow99.**


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